The Rumpus Reviews "Either Way I'm Celebrating" by Sommer Browning

The Rumpus gives Sommer Browning's new book, "Either Way I'm Celebrating," a thumbs up, praising her ability to balance humor and serious themes. While the reviewer, Sean Singer, is concerned about Browning's opinion of her readers-- "the speaker gives the sensation that she’s the smartest one in the room, an increasingly annoying quality"--he is happy to admit that Browning is actually pretty smart:

The best poems in Either Way I’m Celebrating are her longer and more ambitious poems. For example, “The Meat from the Dream the Heart Knows” uses different kinds of syntax and diction to create a sensation of layers of interrupting voices not always the poet’s. Like most of the book, this poem uses humor as its basic tone, but veers into realms of seriousness when the humor becomes for the speaker another route to delusion or disappointment. In “Officer and a Gentleman” the speaker plays charades and tries to guess the name 1982 Richard Gere romance. The reader thinks the poem will be an exercise in nutsy goofhead-ness as double-entendres and witticisms give way a more serious comment about gender.

Read the full review here.