Staff Pick
This is a pretty strange and immensely atmospheric poem cycle by a writer who seems to be pretty overlooked in the "writers who dare to flip form on its head" school of writers. The basic conceit is that there are these two teenagers, see, and they seem to be mostly stuck in a house, alright? And in that house (or in the nearby parking lot, or on the streets) there are oceans that make "the sound of footsteps running up stairs"; an old man whose "eyes roll up into his head as he brings a slaughtered lamb back to life"; and time that is like "tiny glass bottles filled with the smell of yourself." Colasacco's book strives to awaken a world of new senses that you didn't know existed and it does so on nearly every page. There's no real beginning, middle, or end to this poem (if it is indeed intended to be a 100-page poem), but it's a book of mystery and melancholy that lingers. Recommended By Kevin S., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Poetry. I like this book a lot. I found a lot of surprises in the way the sentences worked. I was taken down a path cognitively and then thrust into a situation that made me use my psychedelic brain. I like being asked to do that. TWO TEENAGERS seeks the dust and doorways that evoke emotive meaning. Each sentence unfolds new emotions through a kind of paced, unique, symbolic logic. Measurable phenomena + the liquid in which the answer skinny dips. Verificationism + a tree that survives on echoes. This book is full of feelings I'd forgotten I'd had.--Sommer Browning