A cool thing that happened near the end of 2025 was a couple of people reached out asking me to review books for them. Enthusiastic “yes”es followed\u2014it is exciting that anyone thinks this blog is worth using to promote a book. Problem was, 2025 was an incredibly difficult year for me personally, and 2026 kinda got off to a rocky start, too. I don’t feel like going into details, but it’s been stressful times over here. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, now. When that light started peeking in, though, I realized I had totally forgotten those two requests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that’s what this blog is doing this week and next, honoring those requests. With deep, deep apologies for my lateness. Up first, let’s look at the inventive and multi-modal My Ardent Love For The Pencil <\/em>by Vi Khi Nao, published by Malarkey Books in September 2025. You can buy it direct from Malarkey<\/a> or at Asterism<\/a>. I’m going to try a sort of question-and-answer review format, see how that goes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What is this book? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, poetry. Right? Lots of really good, singular lines. But also huge blocks of prose text. Huge blocks of emails. Friends and family with real character traits. A romantic subplot with, you guessed it, a pencil. Pencil boobs even make an appearance, which our narrator quickly covers for the sake of the pencil’s modesty. Yes, there is plenty of sex in this book. There are also photographs. Not on every page, and not always obviously related to the text, but always enhancing the text. Think less of the illustrations in Numamushi<\/a><\/em> and more Tim Rutilli’s polaroids in Selenography<\/a><\/em>. Maybe it’s helpful to post a representative page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wait, that looks like a “normal” two pages of poetry. Here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The poem is that which resists paraphrase, not that I need to remind the erudite readers of the shipwrecked sailor blog of that fact, so I hope these shots get you as intrigued about this book as anything I’m writing here. It is a multi-modal book, a multi-disciplinary book. It’s a collage of sorts. It’s definitely of a genre, even if what that genre is can be impossible to define. That’s because these types of books are totally singular, totally the product of an artist’s mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok, but what’s going on in this book? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The descriptor I keep coming back to is “this is a published notebook.” That’s not meant to be derogatory. Obviously, a ton of thought and editing went into this book. It reads, though, like a notebook\u2014rapid fire lines double-spaced as though they are separate ideas for poems to be written later. Some are vague, like ideas of something to write a poem about (“We all berate each other for our mediocrity. \/ How do I remove the minds of others from my mind? \/ It won’t be me\u2014I don’t love you in the same way.”), whereas some feel more fully like lines of poetry ready for the rest of the poem to be written around (“Who do I want to be intimate with today? Random strangers or my clitoris? \/ The sound of wind chime waking up another wind chime. The sound of one chorus waking up another chorus \/ I wake up, an image of me in a pencil’s arm.”), and sometimes sections are titled like “Play Idea” or “Title For A Future Book” or “Review for Sid.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the big prose blocks are career anxiety\u2014”Ranking order of blurbers Joanna Ruocco Rae Armantrout 4 months (may 2017) Book Forum Raintaxi New York Times Advanced Review Copies ARCs After been published Literary magazines Quarterly List of reviewers (personal copes) Prize money (not royalty) No advance on regular pub Fc2 not UA press Prior publication Acknowledgment No signed publications Author questionnaire Dedication Let the design try the cover Release to photographer University of Ptts. Northwestern Iowa presses.” A paragraph like this is an insight into the chaos of trying to promote your work as a small press author, it’s true. As you can see, though, it is surrounded by metaphor, sex, sadness, desperation, and interesting photography. It’s a collage, and it’s interesting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Would you call this book self-indulgent?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No. It risks that label and walks that line, but no. There’s too much “this can only come from a singular mind” here, too much pure artistry. It doesn’t navel-gaze. The seemingly out-of-nowhere-but-doesn’t-it-look-cool photographs really add a lot. Then lines like “Dia wakes up with the revelation that she wants to be rich. So she could have a washer and dryer in her apartment. \/ Invisible sentences\u2014if you come to me again I will murder you. \/ She is sad hat I sent her friend, the pen, into exile. \/ There are things on your body that are harder than mountains and travel faster than snow.” just rip through your brain like sorry, what?<\/em> One of the greatest pleasures of reading poetry is how quickly the poet is allowed to pick things up and put things down. Literature ought to make us feel a little dizzy. Sex does, so why not books? Anyway, this book, which has features a romantic subplot with a pencil, will make you dizzy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should someone who doesn’t read a lot of poetry and isn’t plugged into the writing scene read this book? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s hard for me to tell exactly what normies like\u2014I haven’t read much (any?) autofiction, and will probably never trudge through those Karl Ove Knausg\u00e5rd books<\/a>, even though people seemed to like them. So I’m basically a fresh little lamb when it comes to reading books with this level of drawing on the personal. That all said, it’s fun to get access to a writer’s unfiltered thoughts (or more accurately, a text presented as a writer’s unfiltered thoughts). Especially when the resulting text is as interesting and takes as many leaps as this one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Is the title instructive?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, in the sense that this book feels like the author is in love with writing. That “name presses and journals” or “publish your mentor’s emails” or “worry about prize money” stuff risks sounding whiny or talking shop too much, but I don’t think Vi crosses that line. This is not an acerbic book, nor is it bitter, nor is it gossipy. There is anxiety and frustration, sure, but ultimately, I think this is the text of someone who cannot do anything but<\/em> live artistically. This is the text of someone consumed by art, in a good way. It’s a treat to see a version of how the mind works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you have fun reading this book? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unequivocally, yes. The short page count (62) means we’re in and out without wearing out the welcome. I always enjoy visual art in primarily text books, I wish it was easier for publishers to do more. The poetry is really, really good. The ending has stayed with me. It really leaves you feeling unresolved, in the way that life always has a next thing on the to-do list. It’s a fascinating book that I know I could get more out of the more I read it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_7247-1024x768.jpg\")
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