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The Book of Accident
In her latest collection of poems, The Book of Accident, Beckian Fritz Goldberg invites the reader into a shadowy atmosphere where her language prowls among strange images; hummingbirds become a "fistful of violet amphetamines" and desire gnaws away like a "live rat sewed up inside us." Reading The Book of Accident is like entering a graphic novel with missing panels, a noir world of queasy glints and feral adolescents, "a world where no one has to love you." Characters go by odd names: Torture Boy, Skin Girl, Lala Petite, Wolf Boy (his body "pale as the plucked end of light"). They are punk kids fending for themselves in an expressionistic version of those old stories "that began, Let's take the children out to the woods / and leave them." And on every page, there's Goldberg's hard-edged wit, with the speed and flash of a video game. These poems show mercy but give no ground. They make you feel heartbroken and frightened and exhilarated at the same time.
- GenresPoetry
90 pages, Paperback
First published June 6, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 21, 2018
A really wild, wonderful book. Goldberg is such a master at ending poems--so many times I got to the end of the poem surprised and moved by where I ended up. Definitely a read worth returning to again and again.
September 18, 2008
I really thought this was a pretty wonderful book, one that falls well outside the orbit of it's putative genre, lyrical poetry.
It's a series of narrative poems that instead of progressing directly through a narrative seem to share common narrative ground: there's been a nuclear accident, and the result is a gang of lost mutant boys with names like Torture Boy and Wolf Boy. The poems tackle their life of isolation and yearning for love, and show an almost juvenile (but in a good way) love-hate fascination with their creepiness. Along the way, poems about the environment post-accident, etc. It's weird, as if the poems are somehow commentary on a story we should already know or something, but the writing is deliciously purple, and each poem dives down a rabbit hole of lyrical inquiry all its own, and it's intoxicating to read.
I've got theories (ie: it's all about contemplating motherhood), but what do I know. It was a great read, full of electricity and excitement, and why would you need more than that?
It's a series of narrative poems that instead of progressing directly through a narrative seem to share common narrative ground: there's been a nuclear accident, and the result is a gang of lost mutant boys with names like Torture Boy and Wolf Boy. The poems tackle their life of isolation and yearning for love, and show an almost juvenile (but in a good way) love-hate fascination with their creepiness. Along the way, poems about the environment post-accident, etc. It's weird, as if the poems are somehow commentary on a story we should already know or something, but the writing is deliciously purple, and each poem dives down a rabbit hole of lyrical inquiry all its own, and it's intoxicating to read.
I've got theories (ie: it's all about contemplating motherhood), but what do I know. It was a great read, full of electricity and excitement, and why would you need more than that?
April 18, 2008
Outside of Ovid's Art of Love (but way different), I think this is the most sensual collection of poems I've read. Rich, complicated, erotic, longing: From "Skin Girl's Tattoo": "Wanting it dark, it deep, it blue/as the bitten place"... From "Last Erotica": "Stay with me, your body in my body"...From "Sudden Masters": "Blood,/ I dreamed I held your dark head against my breast."
I also love this book because I believe in art that unflinchingly roots for the underdog, the "freak": Torture Boy, Burn Boy, Skin Girl, Wolf Boy...the "non-poetic." Fritz Golberg knows/hopes that Jimmy, who "had four pearls inserted in the shaft of his cock" has NO chance of making an appearance in The New Yorker or Collins' "Poetry 180"...and her writing is a gillion times better for it.
I also love this book because I believe in art that unflinchingly roots for the underdog, the "freak": Torture Boy, Burn Boy, Skin Girl, Wolf Boy...the "non-poetic." Fritz Golberg knows/hopes that Jimmy, who "had four pearls inserted in the shaft of his cock" has NO chance of making an appearance in The New Yorker or Collins' "Poetry 180"...and her writing is a gillion times better for it.
September 5, 2007
Beckian Fritz-Goldberg is a clever, clever woman. This collection was incredibly cohesive as characters (with names like Burn Boy, Torture Boy, and Skin Girl) from a strange world (which seems to be our own through a different lens) interact with each other, come up in each other's poems, and have different experiences of their own throughout the book. There are twists and turns and beautiful images and language throughout.
May 16, 2010
Poems of grit, punk, and strangeness/horror, they still retain Beckian Fritz Goldberg's unique ear and lyric sensibility. These poems are still so utterly "her" while being fascinatingly different and new for her at the same time.
August 21, 2007
Worst cover ever? I think so. But I can't wait to read this one. I really liked Lie Awake Lake.
I still really liked Lie Awake Lake, but this one didn't work for me as much. Just too disconnected for me.
I still really liked Lie Awake Lake, but this one didn't work for me as much. Just too disconnected for me.
May 25, 2008
Just read it.
Read
October 9, 2009The Book Of Accident (Akron Series in Poetry) by Beckian Fritz Goldberg (2006)
April 29, 2012
In 2007, this collection made a poet out of me.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews