Kim Addonizio

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: With both passion and precision, Lucifer at the Starlite explores life’s dual nature: good and evil, light and dark, suffering and moments of unexpected joy. Whether looking outward to events on the world stage—the war in Iraq, the 2004 Asian tsunami—or inward at struggles with the self, these poems aim at the heart and against the feeling that Lucifer may have already won the day.

My Review: The title poem, "Lucifer at the Starlite," will give show more you a flavor of her work:

Here's my bright idea for life on earth:
better management. The CEO
has lost touch with the details. I'm worth
as much, but I care; I come down here, I show
my face, I'm a real regular. A toast:
To our boys and girls in the war, grinding
through sand, to everybody here, our host
who's mostly mist, like methane rising
from retreating ice shelves. Put me in command.
For every town, we'll have a marching band.
For each thoroughbred, a comfortable stable;
for each worker, a place beneath the table.
For every forward step a stumbling,
A shadow over every starlit thing.

This is as good as her poetry gets, so if you don't like that, give the collection a miss. I liked it, as you can tell. I thought there was a freshness about her very serious point, the expression was light and informal and that's (I'm pretty sure) what she was going for; but The Divine Miss, in her inimitable way, upon hearing me read several poems aloud, commented: "Nice! She's Auden for the ADD generation."

Well, when you can't top a line, get off the stage. Recommended. show less

There's a lot of rough stuff in this book about a young woman who finds herself living and sometimes selling herself on the streets of San Francisco's Haight/Asbury and Tenderloin districts, and the people who orbit her life in one way or another. The sights, smells and feel of some of SF's seedier sections are drawn exceedingly well. There is a lot here that it ugly but a lot of the background action is based on real events: the private investigator in the story is based on a real person, show more and many of the incidents either portrayed or described in passing are events he witnessed or learned of through his daily work.

At any rate, there is a lot of tough but beautiful writing here, characters that are well drawn and hold a reader's interest without being over sentimentalized, and a cascading storyline that builds to what I found to be an excellent finish.

Full disclosure time: Kim Addonizio is a friend of mine, as is the PI whose stories greatly inform the novel and to whom the book is dedicated. show less

If you expect lyrical poetry, look elsewhere. Addonizio's language is rough, almost vulgar in places. Some of the poems sound autobiographical; some seem to draw from real experiences to draw a fictional picture; most of them are liberally watered with alcohol. There are powerful images and emotions and yet... they left me almost cold.

In her autobiography, Addonizio compares herself to Bukowski and this collection proves that - Bukowski's style had always been alien to me and Addonizio's show more work reminded me of some of his - more feminine, more contemporary, more relatable but still a bit away from the style of poetry I like.

I am still happy that I read it - some of the images she created were worth working through the language but I am not sure that I will be looking for any more of her collections. show less

It may seem a gaudy move, but Kim Addonizio’s release of a memoir and poetry collection within mere days of each other isn’t that surprising. In fact, when you consider the awards Addonizio’s won, the variety of different forms she’s worked in, and her longevity as an artist, this release two-fer feels practically de rigueur, just another milestone in a brilliant career.

Though this review primarily concerns Mortal Trash, Addonizio’s latest poetry collection, I should say that I show more found the portion I read of her memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress, to be highly enjoyable. A compelling, crisply written book, Bukowski in a Sundress is bound to sell more than a few copies. And in its accessibility it provides an interesting counterpoint to the poems of Mortal Trash, poems that sometimes share this accessibility, sometimes seem to purposefully reject it.

The strongest poems in Mortal Trash are the ones that are the most concrete, the most steeped in reality. And there are plenty of them. “Lives of the Poets”, “Ways To Go”, “Review of Possible Signs and Symptoms”, and “Florida” are filled with nifty linguistic twists, provocative imagery, and cunning observation. Another high point is Addonizio’s sonnet sequence, which is brimming with trashy beauty and startling wisdom. As for the other extreme, the re-castings contained in the section entitled, “Over the Bright and Darkened Lands”, I find the experiment impressive but can’t say I felt the same level of connection I had with other parts of the book. On balance, Mortal Trash is a laudable collection of poems, the best of which can only enhance Kim Addonizio’s legacy.

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/kbaumeister/2016/07/the-nervous-breakdowns-re... show less