Shame / Shame

by Devin Becker, David St. John (Foreword)

WINNER OF THE 2014 A. POULIN JR. POETRY PRIZE Selected by David St. John

"Devin Becker's Shame | Shame is a brilliant debut collection. Here, the prose poem has been re-imagined as a cinematic vignette, yet rooted as deeply in the American Northwest as anything in Richard Hugo and David Lynch. Raw, intimate, and elliptical in its metaphysics, Devin Becker's poetry captures an idiomatic recklessness while navigating those angular narratives of our contemporary lives."--David St. John

Devin Becker grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and lives in Moscow, Idaho, where he works as digital initiatives librarian at the University of Idaho Library. He was named a 2014 "Mover and Shaker" by Library Journal .

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2015

About the author

Devin Becker was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His first book of poetry, Shame | Shame , was selected by David St. John as the winner of the 2014 A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize. He currently lives in Moscow, Idaho, where he works as the digital initiatives librarian at the University of Idaho Library, maintaining and designing the library’s digital collections and website. His work has been published in American Archivist, Cutbank, Faultline, Microform and Digitization Review, Prairie Schooner, and other journals.

Reviews

[Jolene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I somewhat arbitrarily picked up a used copy of Shame | Shame at Myopic Books (my favorite used bookstore) after skimming the foreword: "Here, the prose poem has been reimagined as a cinematic vignette, yet rooted as deeply in the American Northwest as anything in Richard Hugo and David Lynch." (Personally, I'd say this work is situated in the MIDwest, rather than the NORTHwest, but that's neither here nor there.) My most recent poem-a-day reads were extremely experimental projects I didn't like by two authors whose prose I really love. (If you're curious or, like, really into weird poetry, the collections were Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong, who recently published the brilliant essay collection Minor Feelings, and Balloon Pop Outlaw Black by Patricia Lockwood, who wrote Priestdaddy and No One Is Talking About This -- two of my favorite books of 2021 so far.)

That's all to say, I was looking for a collection that felt personal and intimate, and Shame | Shame checked those boxes.

As the quote from the foreword reveals, these are prose poems, ones that read like revealing little stories. Not all of them worked for me; quite a few felt too on-the-nose. But some hit hard right where they're meant to. I'm thinking specifically about the last knife-twist of "Plot" (p. 38) about the speaker missing a funeral and the deadpan irony of "Wedding" (p.32) about how the speaker's wedding DJ was left by his own wife the Thursday before the big day, but they still like him: "His summer (our summer-of) was not one we would wish for, or on, anyone. / And not one we would think about except it's hard not to."

My favorite might be "Data" (p. 17) in which the speaker, "ever the Protestant," feels he should remember others' suffering on his birthday:

"[S]o I downloaded the lead New York Times photo -- an Iraqi woman crying over the charred spot where her boy had perished -- and let it devastate me for a while.

Now it's stored with my other image files -- paintings I like, photos from bars, etc. -- and like them, it comes up sometimes on my screensaver.

...

When the photo comes up with guests over and someone notices, I use the occasion to anecdote about my Midwestern/Protestant guilt-ethic.

Oh and we laugh. We laugh for what seems ages."

Throughout the collection, the speaker's "shame" is cyclical. His feelings make him feel some type of way: anxious about his anxiety, worried about his worry, ashamed of his shame. And that, friends, is #relatable.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devin kindly sold me a copy of his book even though I did not have quite enough money in my pocket to pay the cover price (how embarassing!). Thank you Devin, because your poems are wonderful. The title on the cover is Shame | Shame (Not Shame / Shame like it says on Goodreads) so I believe it's a JavaScript "OR" operator. That sense of confounding logic is present in the poems which are largely about that awful little voice in your head that not only causes deep social embarrassment over trivialities but also convinces you to do things you know are utterly, shamefully stupid like driving buzzed in order to buy cigarettes that you swore off smoking and then, just when you are prepared to pretend you aren't feeling ashamed of yourself and enjoy your transgression:

"Three skunks -- a mother and two babies-- waddle onto a patch of grass bordering the woods. I do not want to be, but I'm afraid of them, so I put out my cigarette in the grass and go back in."

[Wuttipol✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Data (ll)

Plural like dust
not moose

like heat
not thunder

Not on, in, above,
or under

Of
Already

Trace and tracer
Flesh made

flesh
made flesh

Word
Eraser

[Amanda Beard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take a few hours and read this book. You'll never regret it. Some lines are so beautiful you will never be able to forget them.

[Fiona]

Received free copy through Goodreads First Reads