“I put in a plastic bag / 8 limes, even the plastic / was alive, it used to be / Precambrian vegetables” – Matthew Rohrer, “49”
It’s poetry week, but The Line Break doesn’t come out until Tuesday. Such is life. Blogs aren’t about synergy. Hey, Chicago Public Schools students parents, school starts after this weekend! Happy school year! Don’t worry, September is still beach weather.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week
FOUR POETRY BOOKS. I had a little extra reading time, and I had a lot that I was excited about on the ol’ TBR pile. Turns out, I was right to be excited. Lotta poetry to talk about, so let’s not waste time. I read Mouth by Amorak Huey, Army Of Giants by Matthew Rohrer, Ghostographs: An Album by Maria Romasco Moore, and John’s Table by Lesle Lewis.
Mouth by Amorak Huey: another banger from my guy, dude just writes really good poetry. Amorak does all the surprising language things, the unexpected word choice or just-right metaphor, but he isn’t afraid to slip a well-placed line of heaviness or hard truth. It’s the kind of poetry that could easily end up on the only Instagram account worth following, Poetry Puppets, but it’s very very far from “instagram poetry (derogatory).” This collection focuses a lot on desire—hunger, sexual desire, dreams—without being overwrought or creepy. This may come as a shock to some people, but there are men out there who are capable of understanding sensualism while also Being Normal. This is the third Amorak Huey collection I’ve read, and I’d recommend them all wholeheartedly.
Army Of Giants by Matthew Rohrer: this is the first full collection of Rohrer’s poems I’ve read. His chapbook They All Seemed Asleep is one of my favorite long poems ever written, imaginative and mythic and epic in scope even at 40-some-odd pages. I’ve also read the collaborative chap he wrote with Joshua Beckman, Nice Hat. Thanks—a masterclass in short lyric writing that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Both elements are present in this collection. I never know if I’m using this word correctly, but the word mythopoetic comes to mind when reading these poems. There’s a narrative, New York-school quality, but also some dreamy, surreal aspects. These poems have a casualness that lulls you into wanting to read quickly, but don’t—the language is surprising, the juxtapositions singular. Idk dude, Matthew Rohrer writes incredible poetry. Grapevine has it that he’s a really great teacher, too.
Ghostographs: An Album by Maria Romasco Moore: I have wanted to read a book like this since maybe 2009? Sometime when Spencer and I were together in a thrift store and he was marveling at the boxes of old photographs. Personal photographs, that somehow ended up in a thrift store. Later, when I worked the warehouse of a used bookstore, I’d find pictures forgotten in books. What to do with this lost media? Write poems around it, obviously, was my thinking. Moore went out and did just that. These poems/prose pieces/whatever they are (this is a Rose Metal Press book, the genre is MIXED) immediately have a haunted quality to them. I haven’t seen Backrooms—even the YouTube videos—but I imagine this is the effect. A lot of these poems have hallmarks of a remembered childhood: hide and seek games, scary-lookin neighbors, mothers who bake regularly.
John’s Table by Lesle Lewis: I love a book that presents itself simply, then forces you to slow down and think. Each line here is its own 1.5-spaced stanza. No caesuras, nothing too complex-looking. Often declarative statements. Poems between one and three pages. But oh my god, each line! Every one complicated by the previous line or the next, or sometimes flipped on its head mid-line. There is no “knowing” these poems, even if they *can* be read relatively quickly. And yes, I said “often declarative statements,” but there are so many incredible question lines in these poems. Stacks and stacks of questions. I love a good question in poetry. Ask more questions, dear poets. Read Lesle Lewis for inspiration.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Hey, TV On The Radio is a cool band.
- This Week In ICE: Third person dies at New Jersey immigration detention center by Marina Dunbar in The Guardian, Family of Gabriel Johnson says he suffered stroke in ICE custody: ‘We’ve been trying to do it the right way’ by Kay Wicker in The Grio, Chicago Nonprofits Serving Unaccompanied Minors Face Federal Funding Cuts After Months of Accelerated Court Hearings by Julian Gonzalez and ‘Seems Like a Betrayal’: They Fled Violence, Followed U.S. Asylum Rules — and Still Faced Deportation by R. Taylor Robinson in Borderless Mag, What is the true cost of immoral laws? This Black immigration film tells the story by Morgan Elise Johnson in The Triibe
- Target’s sales may be up, but Nekima Levy Armstrong says the boycott isn’t over by Kay Wicker in The Grio
- CEO pay soared in 2025, 20 times faster than workers’ pay by Michael Sainato in The Guardian
- ‘Irresponsible’: backlash as Utah approves datacenter twice the size of Manhattan by Oliver Milman in The Guardian. Subhed: “Facility would require more power than entire state uses and suck up vast amount of water in drought-stricken area”
- The Right Has Created Its Perfect Trans Athlete by Lauren Theisen in Defector. A pull quote, because Defector is subscription-based (but worth it!): “If you came across these headlines as a non-sports fan, it would probably be fair for you to assume that there’s a trans woman playing in the WNBA, or at least one at a high level in college who might be drafted soon…Not unlike that period in the 2000s when male athletes would get asked if they’d be comfortable with an imaginary gay teammate, these quotes, both for and against, are all about trans women and girls as a concept, as opposed to an actual woman who could potentially speak for herself.”
What’re you still doing here? Here’s a cover that popped up on the YouTube homepage, and I’m not mad at it:
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. If you work in public schools, please know that you are so so valued.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris