The Inflatable Life

by Mark Laba

Mark Laba’s second full-length poetry collection—and his first in seventeen years—brings to life the old variety shows he watched on TV as a child, shows forgotten in the vault of broadcast history. In The Inflatable Life, the reader will find a little singing, a little dancing, a little drama, a little comedy, a little experimentation. Laba draws on everything from gritty pulp fiction to Borscht Belt humour, from dime-store ventriloquism to twelve-cent comic books, hurling his surprising and often shocking vaudeville narratives from the peak of the Jewish Alps. Some may call these surreal poems literary atrocities while others hail them as lyricism for an impossible century. Thing is, if Mark Laba didn’t write these poems, no one else would.

73 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2019

Reviews

[df parizeau · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's an alternative universe out there where Weird Al Yankovic decided to write poetry, rather than devote his career to song parodies and UHF. Luckily, we live in this universe where ostensibly Mark Laba ditched a career in lyrical lampooning to dedicate his craft to the poetic form. This is truly one of the most bizarre books I have ever read, neo-surrelism taken to the nth degree. My only complain it that it doesn't come package with audio of Mark reciting these otherwordly explorations of verse; if you ever have the chance to see this man perform, ditch all of your plans for that evening.