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The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Poetry (2011)A collection of aphorisms and collages by the Southern Buddha of Twitter. Each page of this book has caught me for hours and hours. Read it and be welcomed to the family reunion of Mark's relentlessly beautiful—and lucid, and funny, and fucked up—wisdoms.
- GenresPoetry
103 pages, Paperback
First published September 10, 2011
6 people are currently reading
392 people want to read
About the author
Mark Leidner
15 books138 followersMark Leidner is a Georgia-born writer of books and movies. He currently lives in California.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 14, 2011
Effortlessly tosses the third eye of a hurricane through a stitch in time. Shades of Poor Richard, Kafka, Wilde, all the clever aphorisms you've read, respectfully recast to prick open unexpected expanses with the thorn of a perfect phrase. "A vote is a prayer without poetry." Amazed this was written by someone I knew five years ago as a young Foxhead aficionado. Five or six LOLs. A dozen yearbook quotes to force on your firstborn. Ample instruction in poetry and perception, war and peace, and the split-second space between opposites where opposites have sex. Really highly recommended, original bathroom reading. A comely stocking stuffer. Keep it under your pillow to memorize when asleep. A transdermal delivery system goodhearted mortals affix to the air above their heads.
May 26, 2011
mark leidner is a poet and my favorite person on twitter, just a constant source of amazing little images and aphorisms. i've read this book straight through beginning to end once each night since i got it last week. (which, okay, it's only 104 pages long, with pretty much a single line on each page... but after each one i have to stop and think, and then think some more, and then smile for while... it adds up...)
some of my favorites:
the mountain thinks it's left the earth
writing is beautiful, like putting on a gold suit and going to sleep in it
poetry isn't circumcised prose, but crucified silence
and
a win without surprise is a loss worse than loss
(which is really just infinitely better than "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." (i'd probably have stuck to tennis if mark leidner had been my coach.))
i really love this book. good stuff.
(you can find mark on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/markleidner )
some of my favorites:
the mountain thinks it's left the earth
writing is beautiful, like putting on a gold suit and going to sleep in it
poetry isn't circumcised prose, but crucified silence
and
a win without surprise is a loss worse than loss
(which is really just infinitely better than "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." (i'd probably have stuck to tennis if mark leidner had been my coach.))
i really love this book. good stuff.
(you can find mark on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/markleidner )
September 8, 2016
Better than Basho, Epictetus or Heraclitus; better than bad Wendell Berry; a little better than "Braided Creek;" not as good as good Wendell Berry, Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes.
May 16, 2011
would recommend to: Mark Leidner, because he's into things that are awesome
April 20, 2018
I loved this book so much I published it.
September 18, 2011
I think this is a book of poetry? Whatever it is, I enjoyed it. Super-quick read. My favorite three:
he wanted to be a superhero, so he moved to Brooklyn and
became invisible
no food grows in the jungle of genius; only dense, green
entangling hungers
and
anything worth doing is worth taking your lifetime to do
I suppose it is the idea in this last one about which I've been mulling quite a bit recently. This digital age with its instant pleasures has managed, somehow, to circumvent my prowess with marshmallow denial. Or perhaps it's simply enabled the vector that competes with my self discipline. Whatever it is, I feel in my middle age that I have not achieved anything notable, but rather, have been diddling squat.
What I need to remember is that anything worth doing is worth taking my lifetime to do.
he wanted to be a superhero, so he moved to Brooklyn and
became invisible
no food grows in the jungle of genius; only dense, green
entangling hungers
and
anything worth doing is worth taking your lifetime to do
I suppose it is the idea in this last one about which I've been mulling quite a bit recently. This digital age with its instant pleasures has managed, somehow, to circumvent my prowess with marshmallow denial. Or perhaps it's simply enabled the vector that competes with my self discipline. Whatever it is, I feel in my middle age that I have not achieved anything notable, but rather, have been diddling squat.
What I need to remember is that anything worth doing is worth taking my lifetime to do.
September 9, 2011
Aphorisms in the vein of Kafka and Wilde, and almost as good.
May 27, 2011
http://ounceofcruelty.com/
Awfully, awfully good.
Awfully, awfully good.
July 20, 2011
I've always felt Mark was something of a font of wisdom, and this proves it.
March 16, 2017
Mark leidner is my favourite genius that walks the planet. This book is one that'll stay by my bedside so I can savour it every night.
October 19, 2018
So good. How do you even start to summarize a book of aphorisms? They are known by their density. This one is very nice. I read it mostly in bed, with feet warmed by an electric blanket, half asleep, as all poetry should be read, so as to most broadly trigger meaning. It gave me comfort, discomfort, and warmth through hope.
September 22, 2018
“a poem is a form so fully itself, it throws into relief the
true, unrealized form of the reader’s life”
true, unrealized form of the reader’s life”
Read
March 21, 2025To quote Björk, "I am a grateful grapefruit" to have found this teensy little gem in the crack of all the books in the library. I stood in the aisle of the english poetry section flipping through and analysing each page.
February 9, 2014
I finished it like 30 minutes ago. Loved it.
So one day I was on Twitter, nothing new, then Ken Baumann was like "Hey I have these Sator Press books on this torrent thing", obviously he didn't say it like that, but it's along those lines. I found Ken's Sator Press a while ago, maybe a month ago, and I found the works to be very interesting and made a "I want to read some of these," note. The one that really caught my eye was The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover. I was attracted to the book cover, I wasn't sure why though, it was pleasing to my eye but it wasn't something crazy and colorful. Sometimes the simplicity of things tends to attract me more than the elaborate stuff, which is why poetry is probably, in my eyes, one of the most valuable yet under appreciated art forms in the world. However, I don't really read much poetry, so I sound like a hypocrite. The only books of poetry I have physically are Tao Lin's you are a little happier than i am, and for some reason that book, in my opinion, was one of the most beautiful, twisted, and hilarious books I've ever read. I also have a book that contains a bunch of Robert Frost poems. Frost's poems kind of bored me and I like Emily Dickinson. I also consider David Sylvian a poet, even though he's really a musician, his recent music is all spoken word with weird jazz or ambient music. That's all I can think of that's on my shelf, I don't know about my Mom's books, I think there's one or two.
Okay so let's talk about the book. Honestly, this will probably be the shortest review on this blog, because well, this is poetry. Poetry is not something that is easy for me to explain, I only feel it, not really comprehend it, I have a thought of what it means, but I feel it more than anything. The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover gave me this strange feeling of, I don't know, I don't want to say enlightenment, because that sounds stupid. When I read this book , I felt like Mark was in my iPad, reading this poetry out loud, and I felt like snapping my fingers, even though I can't do that. I don't know what it is, but these poems or aphorisms were very profound? I've never read aphorisms before. Some of them were criticizing Western society's way of thinking, and it was all true, every word of it. Poetry tends to be more honest than Fiction. Some of them were talking about the magic of writing, how writing tends to be the most powerful way of expression, and for most people it's true. These poems were the words of life, the poems that pop into people's heads and they write them down on a napkin. These are the poems that writers think of but they never write them down. These poems are the thoughts that run through our heads at nighttime while we're trying to sleep or when we take a shower and or thoughts flow down the drain with the water. I don't know, this might be the crappiest review I have ever done, and I will probably have better thoughts, despite that I loved this little book. For now this is what I have, and it will be the only thoughts about this book that will be leaked out on this humble blog.
Rating: 5/5
And here I am with my crazy self, giving it a 5/5. I guess I really did feel it.
http://wordsnotesandfiction.blogspot....
So one day I was on Twitter, nothing new, then Ken Baumann was like "Hey I have these Sator Press books on this torrent thing", obviously he didn't say it like that, but it's along those lines. I found Ken's Sator Press a while ago, maybe a month ago, and I found the works to be very interesting and made a "I want to read some of these," note. The one that really caught my eye was The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover. I was attracted to the book cover, I wasn't sure why though, it was pleasing to my eye but it wasn't something crazy and colorful. Sometimes the simplicity of things tends to attract me more than the elaborate stuff, which is why poetry is probably, in my eyes, one of the most valuable yet under appreciated art forms in the world. However, I don't really read much poetry, so I sound like a hypocrite. The only books of poetry I have physically are Tao Lin's you are a little happier than i am, and for some reason that book, in my opinion, was one of the most beautiful, twisted, and hilarious books I've ever read. I also have a book that contains a bunch of Robert Frost poems. Frost's poems kind of bored me and I like Emily Dickinson. I also consider David Sylvian a poet, even though he's really a musician, his recent music is all spoken word with weird jazz or ambient music. That's all I can think of that's on my shelf, I don't know about my Mom's books, I think there's one or two.
Okay so let's talk about the book. Honestly, this will probably be the shortest review on this blog, because well, this is poetry. Poetry is not something that is easy for me to explain, I only feel it, not really comprehend it, I have a thought of what it means, but I feel it more than anything. The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover gave me this strange feeling of, I don't know, I don't want to say enlightenment, because that sounds stupid. When I read this book , I felt like Mark was in my iPad, reading this poetry out loud, and I felt like snapping my fingers, even though I can't do that. I don't know what it is, but these poems or aphorisms were very profound? I've never read aphorisms before. Some of them were criticizing Western society's way of thinking, and it was all true, every word of it. Poetry tends to be more honest than Fiction. Some of them were talking about the magic of writing, how writing tends to be the most powerful way of expression, and for most people it's true. These poems were the words of life, the poems that pop into people's heads and they write them down on a napkin. These are the poems that writers think of but they never write them down. These poems are the thoughts that run through our heads at nighttime while we're trying to sleep or when we take a shower and or thoughts flow down the drain with the water. I don't know, this might be the crappiest review I have ever done, and I will probably have better thoughts, despite that I loved this little book. For now this is what I have, and it will be the only thoughts about this book that will be leaked out on this humble blog.
Rating: 5/5
And here I am with my crazy self, giving it a 5/5. I guess I really did feel it.
http://wordsnotesandfiction.blogspot....
June 6, 2012
A dazzling gaggle of aphorisms by one of the smartest and funniest poets working today. Shining example: "Missing someone is like what the wind feels like to itself."
August 1, 2014
[read this forever ago but forgot to add, whoops]
"buried deep within art for art's sake lies the implicit sanction of war for war's"
this book changes my life on the regs.
"buried deep within art for art's sake lies the implicit sanction of war for war's"
this book changes my life on the regs.
November 23, 2015
Softer and not funny but grand and reminds me of Brian Eno's aphorisms
April 8, 2013
Some of these do everything.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews