Guest Review by Mikael Covey
Aug 23
Literature, Review, books books, drugs, mikael covey, Review, sick city, tony o'neill 1 Comment
Review: Cure All by Kim Parko
May 23
Review amelia gray, cure all, daily s-press, diagram, goodreads, kim parko, matt bell, Review, smash cake magazine, tracy lucas 4 Comments
I wanted to like Cure All ($8 USD, Caketrain, 2009). I waited eagerly for it to arrive in the mail, marveled at the killer cover artwork and aqueous feel of the book flesh in my hand, and expected great things.
What I found was at best flitting. At worst, disjointed.
Cure All is a bizarre, surreal mix of images and wordcandy thrown together and stirred with some mysterious, floppy utensil that didn’t quite hit all the dry spots at the bottom.
No one can say this work isn’t original, I’ve got to grant Parko that. It’s gutsy, and that’s something. But more than any cohesive flavor, her compilation just feels jerky and pointless. Nothing tasted the same for long enough to reach any better conclusion. Only five pages into this sleek volume, the reader in me started keeping mental score. Two cool lines, four I wished I’d skipped. A solid paragraph, a runny six pages. The score became so distracting that I couldn’t let go and ride along. Every time I tried to liberate these words and let my emotions take over, a fresh dose of “what the hell are you talking about?” rose up and slapped me in the face.
Old Men, Girls and Monsters
Mar 08
Literature, Review, writing achilles chapbooks, dogzplot, peter schwartz, poetry, Review, writing No Comments
Old Men, Girls and Monsters
by Peter Schwartz
Achilles Chapbook Series
I watch the mail obsessively. I do this because sometimes it brings me exactly what I need at a given moment. The thin envelope from Peter Schwartz was one of those serendipitous instances. The contents of that package was a slim chapbook filled with poems that were right. Just right.
Review: Jennifer Love Hewitt Times Infinty Reviewed
Mar 05
Literature, Review cold god press, jennifer love hewitt, Kevin Fanning, Review No Comments
Jennifer Love Hewitt Times Infinity by Kevin Fanning | Cold God Press (2010)
One might think that Kevin Fanning has an unhealthy fixation with Jennifer Love Hewitt. Personally, I’ve seen her and (her crappy Ghost Whisperer show not withstanding) there is nothing unhealthy about it. It seems perfectly sensible to take Ms. Hewitt and obsess over her. Fanning takes it to another level, though.
