Lyn Lifshin

I was not familiar with Lyn Lishfin before winning this book. I had not even heard of her. I was initially amazed at how prolific she is. No more. This volume produces poem after poem all portraying Marilyn as a victim and purporting to be the inner voice of this poor benighted creature. There is a strange repetition of both form and content that drips like a tap on a stone trying to wear the reader down but it didn't work for me. My enni turned to annoyance which then turned into anger. By the end I was convinced that these poems were created by a computer algorithm - and a not very sophisticated one at that. I have man friends who are great Marilyn Monroe fans and I cannot imagine that any of them who appreciate her full talents and the breadth of her spirit would be anything other than angry at this representation of her. Incredibly disappointing and in its own way disrespectful of its subject of its attention.… (more)

First published in 1994 by Quiet Lion Press, Marilyn Monroe: Poems is being republished as an e-book by Upper Rubber Boot Books and, with all due respect to Ms Lifshin, who is a wonderful poet, I'm not exactly sure why.

Ms Lifshin's poems imagine Marilyn Monroe's inner thoughts and, while this could be an interesting exercise, I found it frustrating to read page after page of Marilyn as victim. What about Marilyn as Producer? What about her successes? If you're going to write about a real person, even if fictionalized, it should at least represent.

It's not all lost though. There's a nice crazy twist on the last few poems and the Table of Contents is well worth scrolling through for its own read...the titles tell their own stories and ones for which you can supply your own spin.… (more)