What Sparks Poetry: Aaron McCollough on "Not at Duino"
"I am increasingly persuaded that American Christianity’s embrace of Donald Trump is simply the latest expression of a terrific counter-scandal, effectively another, much more gradual transvaluation of values, whereby the dominant American secular and religious visions have aligned themselves with a cult of progress, the technocratic human image for which power can only mean domination, exploitation, and mastery. The key joke of this era is the one where the man puts a gun to his head, and when his wife starts laughing says to her, 'What’s so funny? You’re next!'" |
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Bianca Stone on Mark Leidner
"These poems are concerned with human predominance for hypocrisy and denial, showing us how we are trapped in an act of pretending to be at ease, but mostly knowing deep down that gruesome horror is imminent. To mix my own simile with Leidner’s: the poems are like Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta 'wagging hotdogs at each other—while only watching their own hotdog, hoping that it doesn’t break.'"
viaBROOKLYN RAIL |
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