Christ, I’m in a bad mood, and here is a book I purchased from a Goodwill full of narrow lines and one word bars. Please William Shatner, read this poetry for us…
I jest, but Christ, is every contemporary poet a fan of Charles Bukowski? Uncapitalized first person pronouns, lack of grammar, and diarrhea of thoughts that always narcissistically revolve around the first person introspection. The thing about these people’s prose isn’t that they are not profound or deep, but rather they are not poetry. Bukowski was an admittedly terrible writer who wrote prose in the shadows of I guess poetic structures, once in a blue moon achieving greatness, but more often not, much like how author Madisen Kuhn does here. But these are thoughts eyeballed with a computer keyboard to be narrow, and as always, just prose broken up into short lines. As always, there’s sloppy enjambment and no real voice here but I guess lines with one word are important.
Always
So
Important
🤮 What’s clear about these contemporary poets is how little most of them read through the history of what really is a rich history of wonderful writers who fell in love with the English language and all it could express. Madisen Kuhn doesn’t possess this affection, rather finding pleasure in thoughts and the very occasional doodle–ideas that maybe would work better as paragraphs, but honestly who cares? They have an MFA! They know what it’s like to be homeless!
Please wake me up when they write details about sleeping on concrete and eating cheeseburgers out of garbage cans. Of having to lay on a dirty mattress in a room full of loud and noisy strangers. Of having to crawl through shit and mud to find release. I don’t think Madisen Kuhn has been thru these scenarios, and while I am judging her work by her lack of discipline or convention, I honestly wouldn’t know. She doesn’t provide context or details about what she went through but her book looks acceptable!
A user on AllPoetry once told me that some of the best poems are found in badly written poetry but I personally find that defense a cop out. It takes a few minutes to write a very easy haiku and maybe more time to write a lymeric or sonnet. These are easy forms that can be mastered quickly, and used as exercises to shape what are ideas in sentence form into actual poetic expressions–hopefully with brevity and succinctness.
Beginner poets often feel a need to plant some sort of flag in the sand, usually wanting to impart a feeling or emotion that feels as IMPORTANT and PROFOUND, usually in a form that is monstrously long narrow strips of sentences that don’t have any line breaks or developed stanzas. Instead of developing technique, they build a body of work that is shallow and exuberant. It really isn’t their fault, as every beginner poet does this, but it’s especially egregious when they publish a book with Simon & Schuster stamped on the cover.
The advertising states that Almost Home is reminiscent of Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, but I disagree. This is clearly inspired by Bukowski and honestly, other contemporary hacks who think they have what it takes to be remembered in, say, more than a few years.
I wish I could write something positive about Kuhn’s work in her paragraphs but honestly, the prose inside this book isn’t worth the time it takes to do so on my smartphone. This collection is merely acceptable poetry and embarrassing work for a MFA grad who was taught to get approval by other beginner poets in writing workshops!
🤮
The Verse Universe 