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The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory: Poems
Consciousness and nostalgia in the Swipe Right age
This collection attempts to find poetry, or what Gwendolyn MacEwen once called “a single symmetry,” amid the chaos of 21st-century life. A powerful catalogue of loss and human connection, it considers not only how our identities are formed by places and experiences rooted in childhood, but also by digital newsfeeds, YouTube, and the “gospel of Spotify.” These poems intimately confront topics as diverse as quantum physics, video arcades, mental illness, climate change, road rage, alcoholism, endangered species, and even a gigantic Noah’s Ark replica.
Chris Banks is a poet known for packing his lines with thought and feeling. Building on the generous work of John Koethe, Larry Levis, and Ada Limón, Banks’s wildly expansive, often lyric, deeply accessible poems are brilliant meditations on what it means to be human in a brave new world of cloud computing and smart phones.
This collection attempts to find poetry, or what Gwendolyn MacEwen once called “a single symmetry,” amid the chaos of 21st-century life. A powerful catalogue of loss and human connection, it considers not only how our identities are formed by places and experiences rooted in childhood, but also by digital newsfeeds, YouTube, and the “gospel of Spotify.” These poems intimately confront topics as diverse as quantum physics, video arcades, mental illness, climate change, road rage, alcoholism, endangered species, and even a gigantic Noah’s Ark replica.
Chris Banks is a poet known for packing his lines with thought and feeling. Building on the generous work of John Koethe, Larry Levis, and Ada Limón, Banks’s wildly expansive, often lyric, deeply accessible poems are brilliant meditations on what it means to be human in a brave new world of cloud computing and smart phones.
88 pages, Paperback
Published September 5, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 25, 2018
I was nervous about reading this book. Then I had to stop and slow myself down! The care and authenticity of these poems. The nostalgic images mixed and bouncing off the reality of life today. These poems really struck a cord with me. Lyrically statements and lists of truths, memories, honesty strung together forming long chains of poem... These poems have something to say. He leaps with ease, back and forth through the decades and back to the present - from digital to analog - childhood - adulthood, long line to short. His last lines Ooooooh. Stand outs: Dusk Till Dawn; Envy at the Crossroads; Temple; Lost Acres Variety. The entire last half of the book. What can I say - my head is in the cloud and strolling down memory lane; no - I'm playing video games, no I'm in my basement listening to tunes; no I'm. . .
May 2, 2017
Poetry is a category of writing that bored me as a student (high school does a great job of sucking all of the life out of reading). But now I have decided to give poetry another go. I started with classics (Rumi, of course), and something very traditional (Mary Oliver).
Then I saw The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory available of NetGalley, and decided that it sounded intriguing, so I put in a request.
The poems in this book were interesting. Very definitely free verse, with no rhyming, or even the sort of formatting I would have expected. And yet, the poems resonated with me. There was a lot of focus on the modern world, and technology, and a sort of whistful look backwards.
If there was anything negative about the collection, it was that there is little emotional variation. Pretty much every poem left me somewhere between melancholy and depression. In general this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it made it difficult to read more than a handful of poems at a time. I know that poets aren't going to take orders, but still, the occasional poem that was more upbeat would have helped the reader.
Did I enjoy the book? Yes. Am I going to rush out to find the author's other collections? Maybe not. Would I recommend it to other people? Only if I was sure they had no tendancy towards depression, since I think it would make things a lot worse.
Then I saw The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory available of NetGalley, and decided that it sounded intriguing, so I put in a request.
The poems in this book were interesting. Very definitely free verse, with no rhyming, or even the sort of formatting I would have expected. And yet, the poems resonated with me. There was a lot of focus on the modern world, and technology, and a sort of whistful look backwards.
If there was anything negative about the collection, it was that there is little emotional variation. Pretty much every poem left me somewhere between melancholy and depression. In general this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it made it difficult to read more than a handful of poems at a time. I know that poets aren't going to take orders, but still, the occasional poem that was more upbeat would have helped the reader.
Did I enjoy the book? Yes. Am I going to rush out to find the author's other collections? Maybe not. Would I recommend it to other people? Only if I was sure they had no tendancy towards depression, since I think it would make things a lot worse.
October 8, 2020
At what point do we give up and surrender to our desires, even if they end up killing us.
The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory: Poems by Chris Banks is the poet's fourth full collection of poetry. Banks received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Guelph, before moving on to complete a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing from Concordia University and later a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Ontario. His first full-length collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry by the Canadian Authors' Association in 2004. Bonfires was also a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry in Canada.
I found The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory a pleasing and nostalgic collection of poetry. Banks by his references is a few years younger than I am but where our historical and cultural references cross brings back a multitude of memories. For Banks, it's the disappearance of arcades and for me the loss of red brick roads. We recall music on tape, particular mix tapes that allowed us to disappear into the music for a while rewinding back to a moment and listening to it over and over again. Today "kids" dive into the stream of music. We slipped so deeply into the electronic age that Banks wants a reboot. Gone is the day of getting our music information from Rolling Stone magazine. In a dusty corner somewhere is our old denim or leather vest filled with band patches and safety pins. We shared the scout meetings in church basements and eight track tapes. We now live in a world controlled by smartphones and leveled out by Big Pharma. Now that we are old enough, we long for the days of our youth. We, like Banks, reflect on the good memories and conveniently forget about the air pollution, leaded gas, phosphate detergents, and Pol Pot.
The other side of The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory is linked to science, history, and literature. The science is good varying from chemistry to quantum mechanics. A particularly good literary pairing was "Wordsworth Versus the Cloud." The poet seamlessly plays on "Tintern Abbey" in a modern retelling the poem; It was my favorite in the collection. In history, Banks mentions the success of the Roman armies. Their superiority was in the infrastructure they built not in their proficiency in killing. There is also the sad story of Martha at the Cincinnati Zoo.
We live in a world that is much different than the world we grew up in. And complicating that change is a world we did not expect. We live in a world where "natural flavour trumps nature every time." It is a world that does not seem genuine -- "Authenticity requires time most people would rather spend at Walmart." Banks writes a collection well connected to very late Boomers and early Gen Xers. We lived in a time when we thought things would keep getting better and we would not get older. Sometimes we forget those days; Banks reminds us of them.
Available September 5, 2017 from ECW Press
The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory: Poems by Chris Banks is the poet's fourth full collection of poetry. Banks received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Guelph, before moving on to complete a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing from Concordia University and later a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Ontario. His first full-length collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry by the Canadian Authors' Association in 2004. Bonfires was also a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry in Canada.
I found The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory a pleasing and nostalgic collection of poetry. Banks by his references is a few years younger than I am but where our historical and cultural references cross brings back a multitude of memories. For Banks, it's the disappearance of arcades and for me the loss of red brick roads. We recall music on tape, particular mix tapes that allowed us to disappear into the music for a while rewinding back to a moment and listening to it over and over again. Today "kids" dive into the stream of music. We slipped so deeply into the electronic age that Banks wants a reboot. Gone is the day of getting our music information from Rolling Stone magazine. In a dusty corner somewhere is our old denim or leather vest filled with band patches and safety pins. We shared the scout meetings in church basements and eight track tapes. We now live in a world controlled by smartphones and leveled out by Big Pharma. Now that we are old enough, we long for the days of our youth. We, like Banks, reflect on the good memories and conveniently forget about the air pollution, leaded gas, phosphate detergents, and Pol Pot.
The other side of The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory is linked to science, history, and literature. The science is good varying from chemistry to quantum mechanics. A particularly good literary pairing was "Wordsworth Versus the Cloud." The poet seamlessly plays on "Tintern Abbey" in a modern retelling the poem; It was my favorite in the collection. In history, Banks mentions the success of the Roman armies. Their superiority was in the infrastructure they built not in their proficiency in killing. There is also the sad story of Martha at the Cincinnati Zoo.
We live in a world that is much different than the world we grew up in. And complicating that change is a world we did not expect. We live in a world where "natural flavour trumps nature every time." It is a world that does not seem genuine -- "Authenticity requires time most people would rather spend at Walmart." Banks writes a collection well connected to very late Boomers and early Gen Xers. We lived in a time when we thought things would keep getting better and we would not get older. Sometimes we forget those days; Banks reminds us of them.
Available September 5, 2017 from ECW Press
December 30, 2017
Modern poetry collections often feel like a rip-off to me because they are generally so short, but this collection left me satisfied – too much of these poems would have been depressing, but the amount in this book was perfect to sit down with for a couple of sessions (I try not to read poetry all at once to give each poem it’s proper experience).
I enjoyed these poems very much – despite being ten years younger than the age group the author was writing for/about, I was still on the cusp of the nostalgia and mid-life issues that he was discussing. I enjoyed how he was able to reference contemporary items/issues but not make it overbearing or too topically rooted, and subsequently how beautiful poetic phrases jump out at you amongst the prose. I also enjoyed how there were classical or literary references used amidst the modern language – not too much but, like the beautiful lines, enough to make it a fun surprise.
Overall, I really enjoyed this collection. My favorite poems were “Amplifier”, “Separation”, “How it Works”, “Orpheus at Ethel’s Lounge” and “The Understudy”, either for the mood, something that I identified with, or because of a particularly lovely line.
I enjoyed these poems very much – despite being ten years younger than the age group the author was writing for/about, I was still on the cusp of the nostalgia and mid-life issues that he was discussing. I enjoyed how he was able to reference contemporary items/issues but not make it overbearing or too topically rooted, and subsequently how beautiful poetic phrases jump out at you amongst the prose. I also enjoyed how there were classical or literary references used amidst the modern language – not too much but, like the beautiful lines, enough to make it a fun surprise.
Overall, I really enjoyed this collection. My favorite poems were “Amplifier”, “Separation”, “How it Works”, “Orpheus at Ethel’s Lounge” and “The Understudy”, either for the mood, something that I identified with, or because of a particularly lovely line.
April 9, 2023
An incredible collection filled with reconnections to the past, exploring loss in all capacities.
April 12, 2017
Truly lovely collection. As I was reading, some of the poems felt like nostalgic elegies, or elegies for nostalgia (nostalegies?), it's hard to pinpoint. You can sense Banks striving to cope with the loss of things that feel elemental to a person even if they might seem trivial to the arc of history (arcades! modems! "intricately folded high-school notes, written in cursive in April of 1986"!), particularly in the wake of the tsunami that is modern technology and how it can drive disconnection even as it claims to fuel connection.
Raw and real and beautiful for poetry lovers (with plenty of references to poetry classics, and even a poem about the struggle between lyric and narrative forms), the poems should be accessible even to people who don't typically read poetry, they feel more like meditative paragraphs and soliloquies on relatable experiences and things, not metaphors trapped inside a rhyme scheme. 4 - 4.5 stars.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Raw and real and beautiful for poetry lovers (with plenty of references to poetry classics, and even a poem about the struggle between lyric and narrative forms), the poems should be accessible even to people who don't typically read poetry, they feel more like meditative paragraphs and soliloquies on relatable experiences and things, not metaphors trapped inside a rhyme scheme. 4 - 4.5 stars.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
April 21, 2017
A collection of prose poetry that speaks to the contemporary moment, full of nostalgia for older technology and questioning the place of the soul in the rapid-fire world of now. Gorgeous, smart, thoughtful writing. Highly recommended.
[I received an advanced e-galley of this book through Netgalley. The book is due to be released September 5, 2017.]
[I received an advanced e-galley of this book through Netgalley. The book is due to be released September 5, 2017.]
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews