25 ratings (4.44 avg)
8 reviews

Sigmund

Add friend

Sigmund’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (0)

currently-reading‎ (1)

read‎ (24)

did-not-finish‎ (0)

Stats | More…

Sigmund is Currently Reading

Sigmund is currently reading

American Entropy

by Travis Hupp

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in September 2025

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Sigmund said: " This poetry collection flows with rock and roll, sometimes veering into pop smarts, always sonically surprising and beguiling with rhythm that's infectious even while delving into dark themes and topics. One of those heavy topics is authoritarianism This poetry collection flows with rock and roll, sometimes veering into pop smarts, always sonically surprising and beguiling with rhythm that's infectious even while delving into dark themes and topics. One of those heavy topics is authoritarianism's destructive march across America and right over the American people by the current administration. In the poem "Martyr", Hupp addresses the corrosive effect Trump is spreading throughout the government, democratic norms and formerly independent organizations now under the president's thumb by describing it as "his seepage's cold corruption spreading exponentially". In "Gorged", a piece about the success of the billionaire class in stoking the anger of the middle class against the poor, blaming them and their food stamps for economic downturn instead of the billionaire's hoarding most of the wealth that exists who Trump just gave more tax breaks to. "Why aren't you working/I don't call that working" the poem begins, "To death dear, to death/anything less is apostasy". Throughout, the poem shreds hope that most people can ever afford their Constitutional right of the pursuit of happiness, saying we shouldn't "think poetry is even anything anyway", commanding "Hammer harder" and "Sell harder" and assuring us "you don't have the money to make real money", treating it as a foregone conclusion that making money is what everyone must devote themselves to. That's just a small sample of the scathing indictments of endstage capitalism, lying politicians and naked fascism Hupp lands throughout the politics section, which ends with the poem "The Worst One" describing "a shroud enveloping every square foot of America/ darkening our story" before predicting "we'll stop telling kids there are no monsters/we'll tell them be the worst one and you won't have to worry about it". The poem also asks if Trump actually won either of the two elections he was declared winner of, wondering if "Russia helped him rig it" the first time and if "his vote stealing got more competent" in his third run.
Hupp's humor is evident from the first line of the opening poem "The Fight In the Guy" : "I'll show you how to hustle/from clusterfvck to kerfuffle". Often warped, sometimes ironic, always laughing into the abyss of despair, this humor helps the reader laugh too, even during poems saturated in darkness.
While the collection's acknowledgement of and tussles with that darkness which is so pervasive in modern America feels necessary, it's balanced with undercurrents of hope, joy, transcendence and faith in a benevolent God that's threaded throughout the book. In Veils, which revels in the mysteries still to uncover about the nature of reality and consciousness, Hupp writes "We have all this wiring and the fact is/we don't know what all we're wired for/so don't just assume you can't surprise yourself anymore". In "The Spirit Moves" he invites the reader to never stop "praying for the day you wake up sin-proof". In "It's Not Too Late", which strides breathlessly from start to finish with percussive beat, Hupp talks of having enough fortitude to "face into the fire/and find the poems burning down inspires" and remembering "something I learned but forgot to remember/when every turn I took was another dead ender" even after "every trick I knew/the devil knew too". The poem gleams with perseverance and resilience, inviting action to overcome adversity in the closing stanza "I won't say fvck it/ I'll say faster/ speed is my steed for skirting disaster". The opening poem in the Love section, "What All I Like" is a celebration of things that make love vibrant and beautiful even now, which Hupp recounts "because I remembered joy belongs to me too".
The Metaphysical section was a stand-out for me. "87% Of the Time In the Simulation" is layered with meanings and narratives both cosmic and personal, poking and prodding reality to see if it's real or holographic while summing up someone falling in love with a person because they "cry when they know you're looking" by saying "sometimes you find the rhyme that's welcome anytime", balancing this and other snapshots of intimacy and rejection as it simultaneously calls attention to a "glitch in the picture stretching over and across the screensaver shoreline". The poem "I'm Lost If You're Lost" makes compelling argument that maybe we either all get into Heaven or none of us do. "Only the Undertow" marvels at the natural beauty of the sky over a lake and takes it as evidence of "God's brushwork", ending with the line "the sky's so deep tonight/only the undertow knows my fate". This all leads smoothly up to the ambitious, ten-page "A Feature and A Bug" which ambles with twisty rhyme, psychedelic subtext and an abundance of lyrically masterful insights about a medley of topics, which roll one into the next mostly seamlessly. On one page, he cuttingly remarks on current trends in contemporary poetry and how it often comes across as inaccessible word salad that's a chore to parse the meaning of with by writing "in poetry anything can be anything/it's only really resonant if you don't understand it". Elsewhere the poem casts time as a sociopathic breaker of promises that "said it would heal me but it just aged me" and complaining how "it never tries to save us/it feeds on and fades us". By the time it's done it's powered a thematic path through painful memories he can't repress even if he wants to, being single and poorly comforting himself about the lack of a relationship with "you don't die without it/well you do/you die regardless", the conflicting, complex journey of how his faith has evolved, resulting in him being a practicing Christian having difficulty entirely giving up Tarot and Wicca, details an internal struggle with psychic "mindflayers" whose "meat hooks in your astral body/lay you out/leave you so dotty", jokes about the fragmenting of self with "the rift was getting real/but I remain Travis Prime", aches because of relentlessly missing people he's lost, regrets retribution he shouldn't have exacted and places he didn't show up but should've, finds hope in poverty and vagrancy by reminding us it's difficult for the wealthy to get into Heaven, and opines that sooner or later every one of us "takes someone's sh!t" because "other cheek turning is reflexive/once we glimpse how beautiful anyone once was"
After the volcanic eruption of the Anger section, the unflinching confrontation with and calling out of brazen fascism of the Politics section, the gonzo cosmic swings of Metaphysical section and the unblinking gaze at disappointment, helplessness, loss and adversity leavened with melodious cadence presented in the Despair section (coming to a head in "Sunken" which borders on giving up on saving democracy or equality with the verse "Now each and every one of us might as well be the trailer park tankhead toppling over into NASCAR neo nazi deathbed"), we come to a break in the ominous clouds with the concluding sections, Hope and Love.
In "I Feel A Change" Hupp puts aside substance abuse, even if not necessarily permanently, to seek out fellowship with fellow Americans of good will "instead of staying away/staying strangers/when we're all trying to shake/the things despair named us". In the kwansaba The Truth, Hupp reminds us that a bright, sunny day is still worth remarking on no matter how often it's been covered in poetry before, stating "the poem's not wrong 'cos it's easy", and telling us even now "love the world that you got". In "Resurrect", a poem about rising with mental health restored from deep depression and anxiety disorders by assuring "Your heart can help you through the horror/you've only got to enter/your own power's inner chamber/to conquer what torments us".
In the Love section, Hupp even rewards readers for sticking with him through the all the heavy stuff by occasionally delving into verses that soar with unabashed romance, addressing the object of his affection in "The Ultimate Epic" with "you scooted a little closer and it made a big difference/just being awash in what you radiate/making up for the pain of existence". It's hard to hold it against him when Hupp briefly goes total cornball in "Concept Of Love" with a verse or two, because he's traveled enough thorny, treacherous ground to have earned the indulgence. The last two poems in the collection comprise the perfect one-two punch to stick the landing, with "Inexhaustible" groovily offering to protect the one Hupp loves by saying "They'll never take your stroboscopic core of light, bossman, I'm telling you/there's no scenario where I'd let them touch your essential cool" followed by the short pledge of devotion that is "Abstraction" efficiently expressing how vitally we all need someone who will be there "when you need someone, anyone".
An expansive and immersive journey that tells the truth and calls out tyranny, notices God even during a time of collapse, surprises and delights with shape shifting style, and is too eclectic to get repetitive, American Entropy beats hate back with heart and has fun even while enumerating and taking seriously the ongoing damage American democracy is incurring at the hands of a president waging war on the American people. ...more "

Sep 28, 2025 03:16AM · see review