Guy Bennett

A very fun collection, provided you like to think and read about literature in your poetry. The conceit is fairly obvious:

Preliminary Poem

This poem is self-contained
and self-sufficient.
It does not require critical commentary
or explanations of any kind
to convey its meaning,
which is self-evident...
it neither necessitates nor benefits from
excessive post-reading reflexion.

But what seems like an easy gimmick turns out to have very interesting ramifications--to be, indeed, worth excessive post-reading reflexion. This first poem seems to be a smirking response to, inter alia, those who dislike 'difficult' poetry; new critics; and all defenders of common sense. Is this *really* what you want? I hope not.

But the book eventually takes in not only this particular discourse about poetry, but most discourses about poetry. There is a 'self-reflexive poem' (thankyou, Mallarme); an unrhyming "poem with rhyme" (everyone knows/ that poems don't rhyme/ anymore); a "naked poem" that studiously avoids using any of the poetic tradition's resources; an "obscure poem" (the true meaning of this poem/ is difficult to ascertain"), and so on.

Usually I prefer art that points to the world (yes, there is a "socially relevant poem"), but the weakest poems here are the 'political' ones. The ars poetica, for instance, forces you to rethink the tradition of the ars poetica, as well as the material circumstances of writers etc etc... The political poems just rehearse well known paradoxes (e.g., pro-lifers are okay with war) or very general immoralities. On the other hand, those poems are ironised by those that follow--the poem with a message, the talking point poem, and so on. Maybe I just needed to reflect a bit more.… (más)

This entire collection of short poems can be read in 15 minutes or so. These are trickster poems, more in the vein of a poetics than of poems per se. A bit of fun with a few serious pokes. Reminds me at times of the late poet David Bromige's humor, although without Bromige's erudition and range as back up (which is not to say Bennett may not be erudite, but that erudition isn't at play here).

In its entirety, the poem "Prose Poem":
" It is not entirely clear what makes a prose poem different from any other prose-format text of similar length. Thus, one can never be entirely certain that one is, in fact, reading a poem."

and "Patriot Poem":
"You're either with us/ or you're with the fiction writers."… (más)