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Much Like You Shark
Printed in limited number for Dusie, and released online as an ebook.
Included in the collection, STUPID BIRDS (out of print).
Included in the collection, STUPID BIRDS (out of print).
28 pages, chapbook/ ebook
First published March 1, 2007
About the author
Logan Ryan Smith
17 books98 followersLogan Ryan Smith writes dark, imaginative fiction with a unique sense of humor and madness. His work appeals to fans of authors such as J.G. Ballard, Chuck Palahniuk, Michel Faber, Bret Easton Ellis, Shirley Jackson, and Hunter S. Thompson. The God of Salt & Light, released early 2020, is a fast-paced, disorienting, yet poetic foray into the mind of a messianic madman that worships the Salton Sea and seeks to spread his faith. The Sun My Destiny, his previous book, is a psychological sci-fi drama that uses the dystopian landscape of a massive garbage dump as the background for familial relationships and grave, internal struggles. His book previous to that, Y is for Fidelity, is a disturbingly comedic tale of friendship and self-discovery that takes twists and turns opposite of every expectation. Western Palaces is the follow-up to 2015’s Enjoy Me. Each are collections of interlinked stories telling the bizarre, fantastical, and often hilarious tales of Luke, a down-and-out writer living in San Francisco’s seedy Tenderloin where zombies, bipedal crickets, ghosts, and monsters always linger in the peripherals. My Eyes Are Black Holes, released between Enjoy Me and Western Palaces, is a twisted novella of false memory, madness, and violence that pays homage to haunted house stories while never actually slipping into the genre. Logan describes it as his "unhaunted haunted house story."
Though primarily focusing on fiction now, his poetry books include The Singers & The Notes (Dusie Press, 2007), Stupid Birds (Transmission Press, 2007), Bug House (Mission Cleaners Books, 2013), and Humans & Horses (Transmission Press, 2018). Logan’s work has appeared in, among others, Hobart Journal, The New York Times, New American Writing, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, and Great Lakes Review, which nominated his story “Bret Easton Ellis” for a Pushcart Prize. He has lived in San Francisco, Boulder, and Chicago, and now lives in Sacramento.
Though primarily focusing on fiction now, his poetry books include The Singers & The Notes (Dusie Press, 2007), Stupid Birds (Transmission Press, 2007), Bug House (Mission Cleaners Books, 2013), and Humans & Horses (Transmission Press, 2018). Logan’s work has appeared in, among others, Hobart Journal, The New York Times, New American Writing, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, and Great Lakes Review, which nominated his story “Bret Easton Ellis” for a Pushcart Prize. He has lived in San Francisco, Boulder, and Chicago, and now lives in Sacramento.
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 16, 2008
"I find myself larger than I am and floating in oxygen and light
I
a drinker
and lover of the dark"
--from the book
FANTASTIC BOOK! AND IT'S A FREE PDF, WHAT, ARE, YOU, WAITING FOR!
"how quick I am despite my heavy conscience" he writes much later in the poem. It's been a long time since I've read and liked a poem, or anything, where the poet/writer compares themselves with non-human animals to find the world to see themselves. Usually there's an endless listing of similes, which make me cringe and stop reading.
This could be set to music, I think, with the poet reading, better than most poems around. It begs for such a thing to happen. Here's a favorite color passage:
"in the water garden
of our bodies
the red sometimes
takes over the blue
and the vessels
still move"
A HUGE FAN of Smith's book THE SINGERS, I was excited to see this PDF available from Dusie on Goodreads.com, and am glad to have given it a nice, slow, drink. And the water in this poem is part blood, and blood of the poem is like all blood, the PH of ocean water, thus.... How many samples are too many samples? I mean, do people get angry if you use too many? Well, I want to use one more, even though the whole poem awaits to be sampled, frankly, but its readers:
"but I’ll speak now
I’ll speak for you and me
since it’ll one day be our innards
they’ll be judging:
I cannot claim that I didn’t know better
and I never meant to hurt a thing
but I cannot explain
desire
anymore
than you can cause time to stop
Time to stop.
oh how I just wanted things to slow down"
OK, so, can you HEAR it set to music with me now? You would have to be tone deaf to not hear it, and if you are tone deaf I'm sad for you.
CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com
....
I
a drinker
and lover of the dark"
--from the book
FANTASTIC BOOK! AND IT'S A FREE PDF, WHAT, ARE, YOU, WAITING FOR!
"how quick I am despite my heavy conscience" he writes much later in the poem. It's been a long time since I've read and liked a poem, or anything, where the poet/writer compares themselves with non-human animals to find the world to see themselves. Usually there's an endless listing of similes, which make me cringe and stop reading.
This could be set to music, I think, with the poet reading, better than most poems around. It begs for such a thing to happen. Here's a favorite color passage:
"in the water garden
of our bodies
the red sometimes
takes over the blue
and the vessels
still move"
A HUGE FAN of Smith's book THE SINGERS, I was excited to see this PDF available from Dusie on Goodreads.com, and am glad to have given it a nice, slow, drink. And the water in this poem is part blood, and blood of the poem is like all blood, the PH of ocean water, thus.... How many samples are too many samples? I mean, do people get angry if you use too many? Well, I want to use one more, even though the whole poem awaits to be sampled, frankly, but its readers:
"but I’ll speak now
I’ll speak for you and me
since it’ll one day be our innards
they’ll be judging:
I cannot claim that I didn’t know better
and I never meant to hurt a thing
but I cannot explain
desire
anymore
than you can cause time to stop
Time to stop.
oh how I just wanted things to slow down"
OK, so, can you HEAR it set to music with me now? You would have to be tone deaf to not hear it, and if you are tone deaf I'm sad for you.
CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com
....
June 16, 2008
I spent some time debating between 2 or 3 stars.
As other reviews have quoted, there are some extremely stunning sections throughout this work, but overall it didn't grab me.
I felt like repetition and a lack of punctuation (neither an inherently bad thing) were either used too much or used ineffectively toward the 'goal' of the entire work.
Just when I was feeling 'done' reading it, I'd come across a line or section that completely floored me. Definitely a writer to keep your eye on, to see where his style progresses and takes him.
As other reviews have quoted, there are some extremely stunning sections throughout this work, but overall it didn't grab me.
I felt like repetition and a lack of punctuation (neither an inherently bad thing) were either used too much or used ineffectively toward the 'goal' of the entire work.
Just when I was feeling 'done' reading it, I'd come across a line or section that completely floored me. Definitely a writer to keep your eye on, to see where his style progresses and takes him.
May 26, 2008
Dusie keeps poetry alive and easy-to-access for all. I think once I finished reading this chapbook, I sent the link to at least three other people.
November 24, 2015
2.5/5
"— how quickly I bend and turn
a complete 180
at the snap of your neck"
"— how quickly I bend and turn
a complete 180
at the snap of your neck"
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews