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Loading... The Dug-Up Gun Museumby Matt Donovan
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Such a great book, and one that is so thoughtful and makes you think. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Vivid writing, unrelenting in its portrayal of the horror and increasing apathy of gun violence.
"although haven't we done that already—stepped back, & looked, & long known what we've made?"This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. The Dug-Up Gun Museum is a thought provoking collection of poetry that had me thinking about guns and their place in America. Matt Donovan has introduced to this reader the actual Dug Up Gun Museum while also illustrating the gym and gun violence on the television. I was engrossed as I turned pages and Donovan is quite the poet. All in all, this book should be included with any discussion on guns and their effects on society.This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Matt Donovan's The Dug-Up Gun Museum does not deal with our unique history. Particularly in the America West, race was not as much a factor as he unhistorically alleges. Many African-Americans moved West and prospered in the Old West where they could own guns and become productive citizens of communities. Not surprisingly, those in power and privilege seek to take guns away from blacks, particularly as it is a solution to American political divisions. Every race can stand on its own without government control. The America West is evidence that any race, and women could run their own lives. Other countries have disarmed their population, and can more easily control them. Mass shootings and killing with other weapons is a problem in other countries however these truths are unexamined in the volume. Somehow capitalism is to blame in this volume but non-capitalist countries have severe issues with violence whether it with guns or other tools. The tragedy is violence and human nature but superficially the author blames America, and the Americans for universal issues. no reviews | add a review
Traveling the nation, Matt Donovan examines the paradox of a country plagued by gun violence yet consumed with protecting the right to bear arms. Matt Donovan's The Dug-Up Gun Museum confronts our country's obsession with guns to explore America's deep-seated political divisions and issues linked to violence, race, power, and privilege. Taking its title from an actual museum located in Wyoming, this collection of poems interrogates our country's history of gun violence, asking questions about our fetishization of weapons, how mass shootings and the killing of unarmed civilians by police have become normalized, and the multitudinous ways in which firearms are ingrained in our country's culture. Much like the poet himself, Donovan's poems are dynamic and constantly in motion as he explores the ways in which capitalism and its relentless stream of content have led to a collective desensitization in the face of violence. In turns harrowing, elegiac, and ironic, set in locations ranging from Cody to Chicago, from Las Vegas to Sandy Hook, The Dug-Up Gun Museum probes America's failures, bizarre infatuations, and innumerable tragedies linked to guns. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumMatt Donovan's book The Dug-Up Gun Museum was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNone
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)811.6Literature English (North America) American poetry 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The same horse is shot again, and he writes another poem.
The same horse is shot again.
And again.
And again.
Until the book ends.
There are beautiful lines here but they are tarnished by thematic repetition. If I read one of these poems, and then let a few weeks pass, and then read another one, this book would be tolerable.
But all of them, all at once, is more numbing that I can stand right now. ( )