Kim Kardashian's Marriage

by Sam Riviere

Sam Riviere's debut, 81 Austerities, began as a blog responding to the spending cuts, and went on in publication to win the 2012 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. A sequel of sorts, the 72 poems in Kim Kardashian's Marriage mark out equally sharpened lines of public and private engagement. Kim Kardashian's 2011 marriage lasted for 72 days, and was seen by some as illustrative of the performative spectacle of celebrity life. Whatever the truth of this (and Kardashian's own statements refute it), Riviere has used the furore as a point of ignition, deploying terms from Kardashian's make-up regimen to explore surfaces and self-consciousness, presentation and obfuscation. His approach eschews a dependence upon confessional modes of writing to explore what kind of meaning lies in impersonal methods of creation. For, as with 81 Austerities, the process of enquiry involves the composition method itself, this time in poems that have been produced by harvesting and manipulating the results of search engines to create a poetry of part-collage, part-improvisation. The effect is as refractive as it is reflective, and disturbs the slant on biography until we are left with a pixellation of the first person. Kim Kardashian's Marriage is a captivating examination of artifice and reality, privacy and exposure, and an uncanny commemoration of the contemporary moment.

Genres: Poetry, 21st Century, Nonfiction, Adult

96 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 2015

About the author

Sam Riviere is an English poet and publisher.

Reviews

[Jean Menzies · Rating 2 out of 5]

This poet and I are evidently just not on the same wavelength.

[Ruxandra (4fără15) · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a clever experiment, but not much more than that. still, it's interesting to see how the book gets better as you keep reading – since you start making sense of his technique –, and each poem leaves you wondering about the next one. on the flip side, any of these poems taken out of context will probably leave you cold.

all in all, I'd say I enjoyed reading this, but I wish I knew what Sam Riviere's poetry is really like. plus, I did buy this because I thought it would have some connection with Kim Kardashian (lol), so I was quite disappointed to find that the only reference to her is the number of poems in the collection (72, for the 72 days her marriage lasted for).


spooky weather

Spotted these lights as I was heading up the stairs.
It was very cold, but wasn't snowing.
This is a repost from last October.

A few weeks ago you may recall
there was a lot of speculation in the media
about the weather for winter.

Lightning and thunder can send shudders
through your spine. Late October rain.
Drizzling down. Talent that touches your heart.

Most of us in our childhood used to fear thunder,
but see now it's just a fun for me.
I have to apologise if I'm not around the next few days.


thirty-three berries

It took some gentle prodding by my part,
placing a plump blackberry in her palm
and telling her to take her time.

Another name for the sweet purple-red
morphed into a multi-faceted, holistic
marketing communications firm with offices.

Indeed.
My fishing life began thirty-three years ago,
in the company of cousin Ricky.

[Charlie Baylis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mirror like reflection on reality TV driven, social media obsessed narcissism which perfectly captures the emptiness involved.

There are seventy two poems, one for every day of Kim's ill-fated marriage to Kris Humphries. The poems are typically short, flatly descriptive, sardonic, and a little depraved. The poem 'spooky pool' goes:

This peeling façade was once the grand entrance
to a long gone attraction in what is now a slightly
beautiful light at the end of the day, Saturday.
The light will be dimmed for atmosphere swims

it's an almost too perfect poem - for an almost too perfect world.

[philosophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took these pictures with a 30-sec. exposure
and a high ISO setting of 1600
to enhance the look of dark days,
an ominous, solid mantle of clouds
with just a sliver of bright sky streaking through.

Are you brave enough for our very final finale?
I have a cat, I have a band or two.
We’ve got cocktails for grown-ups.

I used to review every movie I watched.
(spooky sunsets, p.42)

Κατεξοχήν ποιητής του 21ου αιώνα ο Riviere· χρησιμοποιεί τη μηχανή αναζήτησης της Google και με ένα ιδιόρρυθμο copy-paste, εν είδει σουρρεαλιστικών collage, οργανώνει την ποιητική του σύνθεση.
Το βιβλίο διαρθρώνεται σε κεφάλαια αντίστοιχα των βημάτων μακιγιάζ (Primer-Contour-Highlight-Powder-Blend-Shadow-Liner-Gloss) στα οποία εμπεριέχεται η ουσία της σύγχρονης ιντερνετικής ζωής, το βλέμμα πέρα από τα πλαίσια της δικής μας προσωπικότητας, μέσα από bigger lenses.

and my little lens wasn’t cutting it.
So I popped on my big lens
and got it all.
(spooky berries, p. 3)

Ο Riviere είναι ένας post-modern ποιητής -post-internet τον έχουν αρκετοί χαρακτηρίσει- μιλάει με μια ξύλινη γλώσσα, αποστειρωμένη, αντι-λυρική, που στερείται της συναισθηματικής φόρτισης, ενώ τα ποιήματά του διακρίνονται για την εκχύλιση της σύγχρονης κοινωνίας και των συμπεριφορών όπως αυτές διαμορφώνονται κατά τον 21ο αιώνα.

Therefore keep the network peace.
Therefore label the location,
with a heart in full idea,
with hearts fully defined in American English.
(american sincerity, p. 54)

Πρόκειται για έναν σχολιασμό πάνω στη σύγχρονη μαζική κουλτούρα· δηλωτική η κατεύθυνση αυτή από τον τίτλο ακόμη, από την αναφορά στην Kim Kardashian, τη σημαίνουσα φιγούρα της showbiz που απασχολεί κατά κόρον τα μέσα ενημέρωσης. Η ρητορική του περιστρέφεται γύρω από τη γενιά του ίντερνετ και της αποσπασματικής θέασης των πραγμάτων, ενώ οι παρατηρήσεις του παλινδρομούν μεταξύ ενδοσκόπησης και αυτο-προβληματισμού στην εποχή του διαδικτύου και παρατηρήσεων για γυαλιά ηλίου και παγωτά ανανά.

His wife’s graveside service
was just barely finished,
when there was a massive clap of thunder, followed
by a tremendous bolt of lightning, accompanied by
a sunflower’s pollination.
(grave weather, p.51)

[JC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting compositional technique employed by Riviere, essentially a post-internet variation of the cut-and-paste methods used by the Surrealists. Despite this, the poems can't help but leave you feeling cold, however intelligently the found verse is spliced together. And does this poetry work without prior knowledge of the techniques used to piece it together? Will divide most readers, while leaving the rest feeling ambivalent.

[Paul Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of poems is either completely insane or the most accurate description of the Internet age in the form of poetry. Actually it's probably both.

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

A couple of summers ago, my daughter and I set up a 'creativity tent' in the back garden, where we would read, draw and write 'Dada Poetry'(a technique we borrowed from the Dadaists was to cut words from a page of a magazine and rearrange them to form a poem). Apparently, Sam Riviere uses a more up-to-date method, employing google searches, but the results are similar. I'm not against this; I follow 'Google Poetics' on Twitter because I love accidental word juxtapositions. However, I can't say that this collection did much for me. But then again, Kim Kardashian does nothing for me either. Perhaps it's a comment on the shallowness of modern celebrity, that these poems have very little emotional impact and seem banal?

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

Sam's a difficult one I wasn't on the level of his collection following Martial, After Fame and I'm not altogether here about KKM. I'm thinking that I'll get a few answers from his debut 81 Austerities when I find the time. But this collection is sun-bleached and strange. 72 poems, one for each day of Kim Kardashian's marriage to Kris Humphries, and each supposedly designed following a step in her make-up regime. What I like about the collection is that a big issue people seem to be having with it is that it feels superficial, shiny but without depth, but also that it seems to peel off language in ways that aren't in any familiar poetic nor logical register - it seems to me this isn't a terrible description of the experience of watching the Kardashians.
Riviere's irony came to the fore for me at the end of the collection when we encounter Two indexes, which seem entirely redundant. But perfect there's a move there. In a ways I wonder if he's kind of playing with Faber who it would seem he's contractually together with following 81 & a nice way of expressing his real small-pressism. I But an interesting poet all the same and even if it's hard to find a lot of his work enjoyable qua poetry, I'm curious about what he does and where he'll go.

[Sian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago I had beers with Sam at vesuvio's after attending a reading by Will Self at City Lights. That's the most ridiculous sentence ever. But it was the reason I was interested in reading this collection... Well that and my love for Kim Kardashian. I read this in one setting which I reckon is probably the best way, as it all fits together in some weird, dreamy pop culture-y way. I liked this - I'm gonna read his other books. Yep.

[Emi Cordos]

am înțeles foarte puțin din cartea asta

[Lulufrances · Rating 4 out of 5]

What did I even read just now?!
Possibly the craziest sh*t I've ever encountered in bookform.
In the process of reading this, I looked up at my sister several times, incredulously, reading lines, chuckling and feeling slightly queasy about the fact I'd spent actual money on this.
L'art pour l'art, huh?
Crazy, crazy sh*t.
But good crazy sh*t.
Intrigued by the technique Sam Riviere used, I think search engines + copy and paste are what aided the creation of this collection, and I must say, I did enjoy the fifteen minutes it basically took me to read this.

Also, bonus points for title and first page quote goals...
But honestly, what in the world?

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt like I had been looking at Facebook, Twitter and the Daily Mail whilst half-watching Newsnight - that's what we often expose our neurones to and that's what the poet captures. After finishing the book, I felt like I hadn't been concentrating and yet, I was. Don't debate the technique until after you have tried to experience the montage. Unconventional, but I'm won over.

[Lois · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what I just read and it didn't make much sense but it was oddly entertaining and keeping me curious. $3 ok spent I guess.

[d · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slightly mixed bag, but when it hits, it hits good.
performativity + internet + fractured selfhood = my jam
(interesting work process/style too)

[may think that concept is too good for level of work to compete, this may be true, as yet undecided - still v much enjoyed it]

[Robin Dalla-Vicenza · Rating 5 out of 5]

A genius collection of poetry about pop culture, and the internet age. Sam Riviere is the poet we deserve.

[Katie Athwal · Rating 1 out of 5]

a waste of paper

[Paul Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

THIS IS RIVIERE'S second book of poems, from 2015. It follows a very regular organizational plan.

Suppose we have a "List A" with the following nine words or phrases: american, beautiful, girlfriend, grave, ice cream, infinity, spooky, the new, and thirty-three. Now suppose we have a "List B" with the following eight words: berries, dust, heaven, pool, sincerity, sunglasses, sunsets, and weather. Now take a word from List A and pair it with a word from List B: "girlfriend berries," or "spooky sunglasses," or "the new heaven." Make each possible pairing the title of the poem, and you will have 9 x 8 or 72 titles--the 72 titles of the 72 poems contained in Kim Kardashian's Marriage, a number arrived at because her marriage to Kris Humphries lasted 72 days.

The 72 poems are arranged in eight sections of nine poems apiece, the sections bearing titles--"Primer," "Contour," "Highlight"--taken from the stages of Kim Kardashian's makeup routine.

In other words, we have a mathematically-generated structure as rigorous as that of Dante in the Divine Comedy, with all its threes and sevens and nines, but instead of being based on the harmony of the cosmos it is based on numbers arbitrarily chosen from aspects of the career of a celebrity who is a byword for superficiality.

The poems themselves are composed with techniques that in the USA are called "flarf." In the words of the jacket copy, the poems "have been produced by harvesting and manipulating the results of search engines to create a poetry of part-collage, part improvisation." For instance, the poem titled "the new hardcore" begins with this couplet:

This is an all-out onslaught
that very much lives up to the tech spec.

The poems are not exactly expressive, then--they do not proceed from the observations, ideas, and emotions of the poet--but they can be read as though they are, I'd say, and are even very effective read that way, funny, surprising, even fresh, despite none of the language having actually popped up spontaneously in Riviere's imagination.

These are poems that don't want to be Poems--that want to leave far behind everything that Heidegger waxed lyrical about in "The Origin of the Work Art." And maybe that's healthy, given how things unspooled with Heidegger. Or is it an abdication? Or a renunciation? I'm not sure I like it, but it may be important, I have to admit, a poetry for after the demise of Poetry, a poetry that is important for its renunciation of Importance.

[Cambridge Spine Crackers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the concept of this poetry collection. 72 poems for 72 days, 8 beauty terms chronologically listed as book sections, a series of phrases reordered to produce similar titles for the poems… but ultimately, I couldn’t get on board with the poems themselves.

I like the juxtaposition of modern celebrity culture twinned with ancient biblical references. However, I couldn’t figure out the perspective of each poem.

The perspective of these poems’ narrative felt vague. I also had trouble determining the Who, What, Why, When and Where of these poems.

I want to read Riviere’s other work though, to find a moment where I ‘click’ with his style and voice. There’s certainly something interesting in his writing, but I may need to work harder to understand and appreciate it. Perhaps this was just a bad starting point, personally.

[Lizzie Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was an interesting concept to keep using different pairs of the same set of words as titles, and to use google results for the poems, but the (intentional) artifice and performativity meant they didn't really do much for me. I did like that it had an index though, and I liked the line 'People who like Disney are a disease' lol

[Roxie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! Interesting intelligent poetry for the 21st Century that accurately portrays (and projects) human experience in the age of the Internet.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a bit weird.

[lucy 🌀 · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5 stars!!

[Tracey Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and original idea, though not quite enough to sustain a whole collection. Some vivid pieces though.

[Jessica Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pic taken through a pair of sunglasses with orange lenses

[yomara naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

me hubieras gustado leerlo en el 2019, me encanta como ejercicio eso sí

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Kim Kardashian's Marriage' was phenomenal - just the sort of thing that ticks all of my boxes. Fuck modernity! (2025 note: I wrote that in 2016 - no idea what I meant but go off, young me.)

[holls · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75? love the concept but i doubt most of the poems will stick with me. ill be interested to see his more recent work though!

[Sophie Hoath · Rating 3 out of 5]

All of the nihilistic themes I want to read about, slightly lacking in presentation (but only slightly)

[Aine]

This poetry collection has no direct connection to Kim Kardashian or anything about her life in particular. Kim Kardashian, as one of the most recognisable names of the 21st century seems to have been referenced to represent the contemporary existence, most specifically, the contemporary existence in a world lived so heavily online.
As Kim Kardashian’s first marriage lasted 72 days, there are 72 poems in this collection, divided into 8 sections, which follow the order of Kim’s makeup routine; PRIMER, CONTOUR, HIGHLIGHT, POWDER, BLEND, SHADOW, LINER, GLOSS.
Following this, reference to Kardashian is non-existent. Essentially, she is used to introduce this collection (“I want that forever love”), and then dropped as a subject.
The following 8 sections are cut-and-paste poetry from google searches using various combinations of 16 words, each used in a 2 word title to a poem once in each section. This is a surprisingly complex way to investigate language and meaning. By taking 16 words, Riviera has created 72 poems, all with a different subject matter. The collection is eclectic, to say the least, but by choosing to root the subject matter in the contemporary by referencing Kardashian, and by sampling sections of different online searches (presumably organised by popularity at the time of the search), Riviera has -somewhat surprisingly, with this unusual method - managed to present a snapshot of life in the early part of the last decade.
Reading isn’t necessarily enjoyable, especially the earlier poems, but as one progresses through the sections the familiar words creating such different content is quite interesting. The included snippets and their order also prices to be fairly entertaining in some cases, and can be thought-provoking in others. Often the poems make no sense, and presumably will be interpreted differently by different readers. This is, after all, one of the many purposes of art - to make the reader think. In this sense it’s successful.
Overall, a bizarre collection that merits reading to see how far one writer can push the boundaries of poetry.
Incidentally, I don’t really know what to rate this so I’ve decided not to rate it at all.

[Jonny Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

"God does not force anyone to heaven."