Monster Fashion

Rating:
Summary: "Cotton ball cloud dabbing The sky's slashed wrists."
Review: from "Last Book Before World's End" pg. 81 of MONSTER FASHION. The French novelist Marguerite Duras wrote "If writing isn't all things, all contraries confounded, a quest for vanity and void, it's nothing." MONSTER FASHION shows us that Jarret Keene is on just such a quest. His poems attempt to reconcile opposites and antagonists, academia & pop culture, youth & age, courage & fear, life & death, sacred & profane...and succeed due to his subtle and bizarre sense of humor and an exuberant mysticism. He is the missing link, an academic who doesn't write like one. He writes like an ecstatic and slightly deranged desert essene mystic who somehow found himself trapped in a shopping mall and took refuge in the comic shop. The contradictions mirror the man himself. He is 95% catholic and 100% voodoo, he married his high school sweetheart and dances in his underwear on tabletops in dive bars, he teaches college and pukes his horror on neatly trimmed suburban lawns. This is an important book because it is unlike anything else.It is undescribable. Forget Ezra Pound, read this one.

Rating:
Summary: Gargantuan Appetities
Review: I've been a big fan of Jarret Keene's poetry for many years now. He is possessed of a monster appetite for all things poetry. His poems entertain, awe, amaze, illuminate the human condition through high-energy, zinger-ized language. This is the kind of book you can read, and re-read, keep close to your heart. It is also the kind of book you can buy for your friends, or get on the phone and read individual poems to your friends. Bring it to a party, share the wit and humor. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Great book of debut poems
Review: Jarret Keene's debut book of poems, "Monster Fashion," is a book that adds a sense of freshness and excitement in a genre that is often riddled with staunchy, boring and dry verse from the world of academia. All I have to say is..."Thank Goddess for Monster Fashion!" Keene's book is filled with comedic, familial and pop culture verse that most books lack. I like the fact that Keene has the ability to laugh at himself and not take himself so seriously in his work. We need more poets like this poetic holy ghost.

Among one of my favorites is "Scoped" where the character takes a dreadful visit to the doctor to find out why he's been 'passing blood'.

"He tells me to turn over
on my side and pull my knees
against my chest.
The glove snaps. And
sure enough, he's got his finger
inside of me, poking around."

Because of the immediate and sensitive description
in this poem, Keene does a superb job of making you feel
that you're there. From the "so-clean-it-smells examination
room," to the terrifying snapping of those smelly latex gloves.

This is the only poem that makes me cross my legs
with phantom pains.

"Monster Fashion" is not a book of poetry with just words sprawled out on the page without a sense of order. Keene proves that he is well-seasoned with some poems written beatifully in couplets and quatrains, which is one of my personal favorite forms.

Other poems such as "Heart, You're a Hospital Now" and "Ventriloquism Made Easy," are two more of my favorites where Keene practically yanks you by the arm and pulls you into his cut-throat psyche.

I love the smidgen of ryhme and alliteration in the beginnings of "Heart, You're a Hospital Now."

"Nothing is worse than a dying patient,
Except the surgeon, who gives your life lease,
Cuts you open, removes a sick piece,
stitches you up and grows impatient
of your bloated face."

Oh, I love the way the second and third line

ends with such emergence.

'gives your life lease,'
'removes a sick piece.'

The way the lines and words carefully entwine
and dance so immediately.

'removes a sick piece.'

Who doesn't want to steal that line and run for the hills?

This poem is crammed delightfuly with similiar, arresting lines
all the way to the end, which hurls the reader back
into reality.

Keene's verse in this book are exciting, entertaining, funny and beautiful. From epic poems such as "Ava Gardner, Queen of Earthquakes," to the short and brutal "Black Revolver," Monster Fashion offers something for the most rabid lover of the poetic word.