Hi everyone!
This is only my second review this year (can’t believe it’s already November) but I got two amazing chapbooks from Variant Literature and I need to talk about them. Like, a lot. I already told all my friends how cool they are, so it’s your turn to listen now.
I’m going to talk first about Living Monsters/ Damaged Ghosts by Cori Lohstroh, just because it’s shorter.
I firmly believe in judging a book by its cover, and I can say that this one’s cover is extremely cool. I love both the format and the design, and since I’m probably partial because I also loved what’s written in it, I’ll add that my father (who does not like nor has any interest in poetry whatsoever) actually opened it after seeing how pretty it is. Now, he doesn’t speak English, so he couldn’t read it, but still.
Moving on though, let’s talk about the content.
The first thing that surprised me (in a great way) was how Cori Lohstroh is able to say so much in a few words. None of the poems are longer than a page, and yet they all get to the point and express incredibly well what they mean (hoping I got it right and didn’t just make up a meaning on my own…).
The themes the author expresses are incredibly strong, deeply tied with the environment and our—humanity’s—effect on it. She writes about these topics with an overall surreal vibe, without taking from their importance. This is probably made stronger by her metaphors, which are the ones taking us away from this world to make it more understandable.
For example the first poem ends saying that
«only monsters can survive
their entanglements
with us»
and the idea that we’re so horrible that nothing but monsters can survive us is so simple in a way, and yet so good, and said so remarkably well. This Earth can’t take us, so we have to search for something far worse than anything found here.
She also has a way of putting things that we see as separate but aren’t all that different on the same plane and give you a big «WTF Why didn’t I think of this before?» kinda moment, like in that one poem (read the chapbook and find out which one!) in which she uses conquerors and corporations in the same line and like… wow. [wow. I’m so eloquent today.]
A lot of the poems use no punctuation n/or capitalisation. Now, those are incredibly interesting choices, because of course the rules say not to do it, but of course I’m one of those people who believes in breaking the rules if needed, and I think it works here. The problem with no capital letters in a poem, I seem to understand, is not giving the topic enough importance, and yet I feel like the poems in which she uses no capital letters have a quiet throughout, even stylistically, that would be ruined by having something break it. The themes she speaks about are also too massive to get diminished by the lack of capital letters. And about the lack of punctuation… I know it’s incorrect (read in mocking tone) or whatever, but I like it. In such short poems, such short lines and stanzas, it forces me to stop at every line and read it accurately, and I think that’s exactly what’s needed to understand them. Or that’s exactly what I need, because every word is weaved onto each other so carefully and beautifully that I need to take it in, otherwise I’ll keep feeling as if I missed something—yes, even a comma.
One of my favourite poems (which are about half of the chapbook) is «mushroom clouds and strange topologies». It connects two topics seemingly unrelated, and yet it works so well, and the ending is kind of a punch, in the best possible way.
This is all to say that I really liked the chapbook. I have a feeling that the next work(s) by Cori Lohstroh will be even better and give us something more, so I’m really looking forward to it!
PS: I’m also posting my reviews on Goodreads,
so follow me here if you want to stay updated with what I read!
PPS: I couldn’t take a picture that made the book justice, but I’ll add on in the next days. For now, feel free to look at how cute it is on Variant Literature’s website!