Saturday, April 25, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Screamin' Meme Blurbs
"We live in the creases" says the poet, who knows. This poet knows much that happens where life and language meet, crease, and generate. Intelligent and precise, these works never forget where they are at the exact moment that they find themselves there, which is, quite often for me, in the heart and gut, and also, most satisfyingly, in my brain. I'm almost afraid to read poetry these days because I feel that I should hang my brain on a hat-rack near the door and rev up the croc tear-duct. Not here, thank you, Jesse Loren.
—Andrei Codrescu: author "The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess" (Princeton University Press, 2009), NPR commentator, editor of Exquisite Corpse
The most disturbing line of war poetry I have read in a long time belongs to Jesse Loren in her crucial poem, “The Boots Must Shine in the Apocalypse.” “The jello becomes personal.” The jello appears in a soldier's PTSD-induced dream about a man in a cafeteria who explodes in RPG fire. The USA's ravenous need for “boots on the ground” saves the boots as it destroys the soldier, who says, “after the first kill, you get used to it.” These are not poems the reader will get used to. Read them and repeat after Loren: “Fuck the war / MRE, IED, QRF, XYZ.”
—Susan M. Schultz: author of The Dementia Blogs, Aleatory Allegories, editor of Tinfish Press
A book of poems poking at governing beliefs: “the fleshing words warm/on the sticks of being.” Body in and of a world where “you will be measured and equated with an alpha numerical counterpart.” Seeking a fit ritual in this world, “Put hands to dirt/ Grapes to wine/ We jump across our own making.” A book of screams, laughter, observation, insight. “The universe embalmed into the thought meme pattern.” WARNING: “Your cultural Operating system: has fatal eros.” Poems that read the news, that hope to become the news. Questing and questioning: “It is you poking the hole in the fabric of perspective/
seeping me into you hem of the web?” Why? “To bid the shutter open.” Open this book, & see for yourself.
—Hank Lazer: Author of Days, The New Spirit, Elegies and Vacations, Lyric and Spirit,
Jesse Loren's vigorous poetry arrives like a congregation of personae. The faces and phases shift from poem to poem and line to line with such precision that we feel caught in a circuit of switchbacks. Nothing is forbidden in her sorcery, but that does not mean that poetic license is without restraint. This is instead a poetry of discipline, the discipline of the free exercise of the imagination guided by a talented, generous intelligence. Screamin’ Meme is at turns provocative, perplexing, touching, inspiring, humorous. It continually opens us to revelations rich with meaning. Take this book, read it, see it, hear it, and work with it. Allow yourself to experience the breath and depth of Loren's full tilt exploration of the art.
—Jake Berry: author of “Brambu Drezi” and “The Blood Paradoxes / War Poems"
An edgy, alternate-universe, stream-of-consciousness, naked, visionary piece on steroids.
—W. H. McDonald Jr., founder of "The American Authors Society" & "The Military Writer's Society of America”
Jesse Loren is not afraid to take on idea as subject, nor is she afraid to meander through our cultural contradictions, to "Pull the I along an empty gallery" ("Hands Like Bones"). The poems are both word play and exploration, and a mix of cold objectivity and personal illumination that brings us to surprising moments of wisdom.
—James Cervantes: author of Temporary Meaning, editor of The Salt River Review
From the beginning, with provocative thoughts: "taught restraint, the skin, a gesture ... the way ice plinks in a glass..." --till the end, with penetrating phrases: "truth is a frequency not pursuit..." Loren's words reverberate with soul and intelligence. Loren is a gifted writer and master of craft with something important to say that the world is better off, and blessed, for reading because Loren's words sing, rising up effortlessly off the page to meet us, filling us up, inebriating the spirit, delighting the senses, enlightening the mind, and tuning the heart to a higher realm.
—Kathleen Willis Morton: author of The Blue Poppy and Mustard Seed.
—Andrei Codrescu: author "The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess" (Princeton University Press, 2009), NPR commentator, editor of Exquisite Corpse
The most disturbing line of war poetry I have read in a long time belongs to Jesse Loren in her crucial poem, “The Boots Must Shine in the Apocalypse.” “The jello becomes personal.” The jello appears in a soldier's PTSD-induced dream about a man in a cafeteria who explodes in RPG fire. The USA's ravenous need for “boots on the ground” saves the boots as it destroys the soldier, who says, “after the first kill, you get used to it.” These are not poems the reader will get used to. Read them and repeat after Loren: “Fuck the war / MRE, IED, QRF, XYZ.”
—Susan M. Schultz: author of The Dementia Blogs, Aleatory Allegories, editor of Tinfish Press
A book of poems poking at governing beliefs: “the fleshing words warm/on the sticks of being.” Body in and of a world where “you will be measured and equated with an alpha numerical counterpart.” Seeking a fit ritual in this world, “Put hands to dirt/ Grapes to wine/ We jump across our own making.” A book of screams, laughter, observation, insight. “The universe embalmed into the thought meme pattern.” WARNING: “Your cultural Operating system: has fatal eros.” Poems that read the news, that hope to become the news. Questing and questioning: “It is you poking the hole in the fabric of perspective/
seeping me into you hem of the web?” Why? “To bid the shutter open.” Open this book, & see for yourself.
—Hank Lazer: Author of Days, The New Spirit, Elegies and Vacations, Lyric and Spirit,
Jesse Loren's vigorous poetry arrives like a congregation of personae. The faces and phases shift from poem to poem and line to line with such precision that we feel caught in a circuit of switchbacks. Nothing is forbidden in her sorcery, but that does not mean that poetic license is without restraint. This is instead a poetry of discipline, the discipline of the free exercise of the imagination guided by a talented, generous intelligence. Screamin’ Meme is at turns provocative, perplexing, touching, inspiring, humorous. It continually opens us to revelations rich with meaning. Take this book, read it, see it, hear it, and work with it. Allow yourself to experience the breath and depth of Loren's full tilt exploration of the art.
—Jake Berry: author of “Brambu Drezi” and “The Blood Paradoxes / War Poems"
An edgy, alternate-universe, stream-of-consciousness, naked, visionary piece on steroids.
—W. H. McDonald Jr., founder of "The American Authors Society" & "The Military Writer's Society of America”
Jesse Loren is not afraid to take on idea as subject, nor is she afraid to meander through our cultural contradictions, to "Pull the I along an empty gallery" ("Hands Like Bones"). The poems are both word play and exploration, and a mix of cold objectivity and personal illumination that brings us to surprising moments of wisdom.
—James Cervantes: author of Temporary Meaning, editor of The Salt River Review
From the beginning, with provocative thoughts: "taught restraint, the skin, a gesture ... the way ice plinks in a glass..." --till the end, with penetrating phrases: "truth is a frequency not pursuit..." Loren's words reverberate with soul and intelligence. Loren is a gifted writer and master of craft with something important to say that the world is better off, and blessed, for reading because Loren's words sing, rising up effortlessly off the page to meet us, filling us up, inebriating the spirit, delighting the senses, enlightening the mind, and tuning the heart to a higher realm.
—Kathleen Willis Morton: author of The Blue Poppy and Mustard Seed.
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