A Microreview (1 biceps)
I don't know who wrote this, but so far this is the coolest review ever. I love the rating system (biceps! (I'm sure I'm supposed to know whose they are, but I don't)):
And thank you...
UPDATE 10 JULY 08: Fleegan has taught me how to read the system: fewer biceps, better book, and as it turns out (updated link), A Murmuration of Starlings got one bicep. See Fleegan's comment below...
This is a fantastic book of poetry! His other book of poems, Murder Ballads was very good, but this one was great. The poems all centered around the civil rights movement. I loved how Mr. York used music in his poetry. These poems were beautiful and chilling at the same time. They were just perfect. Okay, enough gushing.
And thank you...
UPDATE 10 JULY 08: Fleegan has taught me how to read the system: fewer biceps, better book, and as it turns out (updated link), A Murmuration of Starlings got one bicep. See Fleegan's comment below...
http://ronslate.com/nineteen_poets_name_some_new_favorites_celebrate_national_poetry_month
And this mention in a list of poets to celebrate for NPM --- congrats!
A Murmuration of Starlings by Jake Adam York (So. Illinois, 2008)
recommended by David Wojahn
York's notes to the volume state that it is "part of an ongoing project to elegiaze and memorialize the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement." The book proves worthy of its goal. It's a large and sweeping documentary poem in the tradition of Rukeyser's Book of the Dead and Reznikoff's Testimony, with a cast of characters ranging from Emmett Till to Sun Ra. Long poem projects along these lines often seem tethered to their "research" and end up smelling like a library carel -- not so York's collection. His struggle with the benighted history of his native South is conveyed with great urgency, and with a terse concision that brings to mind the early work of Heaney. It's a book of unusual ambition and range. – DW
hi. i wrote that very brief "review". i really loved your book. also, the bicep is jose "douchebag" canseco. i use his pic as a rating system, and the fewer cansecos the book gets the more i like the book. it's kind of an inside joke, i guess.