Criticism

“It throws up all over Keats’ negative capability”: Gchat Reviews at HTMLGIANT

By Harriet Staff

Turns out it’s the era of gchat reviewing. Well, when you and your pal live in different cities, and need to read chapbooks, it all makes sense! If you tip your hat to this idea, head on over to HTMLGIANT, where poets and friends Ben Mirov and Amy Lawless review three chapbooks: Ben Pease’s Witchman Cometh (Monk Books 2010), Paige Taggart’s Polaroid Parade (Greying Ghost Press 2011), and Dana Ward’s Typing Wild Speech (Summer BF Press 2010). An excerpt from their review of Pease:

Construction: 7″ x 8″ black matte cover with sweet-ass fonts, interior illustrations by the poet

Sample Poems:

1.) VIII, XII, XXV at Notnostrums

2.) “Chateau Wichman” at Paperbag

Criticism:

Ben: ok how bout witchamn first
Amy: K
Ben: it’s like an epic slaker poem right?
slacker
Amy: It’s narrative
Yeah total slacker narrative perfect summer beach read
Ben: heh perfect summer beach read yeah
Amy: IT’s like The Right Stuff meets
…Judd what’s his name outside from
that 80s movie
Ben: breakfast club
Amy: Yeah Breakfast Club
fist pumping
Also the images – Pease made them himself
almost like he made it
using MS-Dos
pixels
It’s also truly American
Ben: O yeah they are like inchoate pics of the Terminator and the Deathstar or something. I don’t really know what they are but they look rad
Amy: Heh heh
Yeah have you seen his hair
Ben: naw
Amy: Ha
Look at the back cover
instead of a blurb
it’s in “Back to the Future Font”
it says “The Wichman Now in 3D and Future-Proofed from Oblivion”
Ben: he told me he spent days finding that font online
Amy: It shows
he got it
Ben: it was like a quest to find that exact font from a huge catalog of “video game” fonts or something
Amy: This chapbook is cinematic
HAHAHAHA
Ben: good one
Amy: Seems odd that this chapbook
was written by a Columbia graduate
It throws up all over Keats’ negative capability
(proud of that one)
Ben: that’s a good blurb

They keep going.

Posted in Criticism on Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 by Harriet Staff.