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Awe
If the book of Revelations had been scribbled in the diary of a precocious fourteen-year-old girl, the prophecies might look something like Awe. Dorothea Lasky is a daring truth-teller, naming names and boldly pushing the boundaries of confession. The secrets she tells are truths we recognize in “Be scared of yourself / The real self / Is very scary.” Dorothea Lasky was born in St. Louis in 1978. She is the author of several chapbooks and has attended Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
73 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
June 28, 2008
Small update added to bottom.
***
I am a dissenter and a blasphemer.
Just kidding, but I must diverge from the general consensus that seems to have surrounded this book in a buzzing, glowing bubble.
I'm not done with it yet, but so far I am only giving it 2 3/4 stars.
I do appreciate the risk taken by offering a collection that is a significant stylistic departure from a lot of contemporary poetry these days. However, this style is not my style and doesn't really resonate for me.
It certainly does seem to have resonated for many other readers. I have heard a lot of praise for how refreshing it is. I have a heard a lot of laudatory remarks about how honest it is.
I am not sure what makes this book strike people as being more honest than any number of other books. Is it the relatively pared down style, the relatively straightforward usage of language that does not rely heavily upon figures of speech or even very specific imagery, for that matter?
In one poem, the speaker states,
"There is shit on my hands
When I have been playing around with specifics.
Love your lover. You are a lover."
Well, I like specifics--and I don't relate to this poetry's seeming disdain for artifice or complexity. This poetry seems to regard artifice and complexity as liars and unneccessary clutter, but I do not agree. I do not think that weeding out figures of speech or winnowing things down to simple statements is necessarily a more honest approach or that it necessarily comes closer to the truth--or at least certainly not everyone's truth. It is just another approach, just another style.
Perhaps this poetry is trying to get down to the essence of things--but statements like 'Love your lover. You are a lover.' do not strike me as particularly enlightening epiphanies or summations (maybe they're not meant to be; maybe they're meant to be more like small celebrations). Others may disagree and they are welcome to.
I think that there are many different kinds of honesty, truth, verisimilitude, authenticity, and suchlike. This poetry may well be authentic in its own way and by its own standards and by its own logic, but it not THE truth. It is A truth.
I think that 'AWE' is an apt title for this book, because it seems to convey a certain tone of child-like wonder and perhaps that comes across as quite refreshing to some readers. To me, it often comes across as strangely overly earnest and sometimes simplistic which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but...
I especially don't relate to the repeated references to 'soul' and 'spirit' and 'God'. Frankly, I really dislike the words 'soul' and 'spirit'. They don't mean anything to me or even evoke much of anything for me. Of course, every reader is going to bring her own interpretations to poetry and I have no problem with ambiguity or certain kinds of abstraction, but those words strike me as so abstract as to be almost meaningless, unless one is coming from a certain sort of Christian or spiritual background, which I am not. This poetry probably thinks that I am spiritually bankrupt.
The logic of this poetry makes me feel like I am being unaccepting by not being willing to lovingly embrace words like 'soul' and 'spirit'. The logic of this poetry seems to be seeking to purify. It makes me feel like I'm standing in line to receive some holy sacrament, except that I don't believe in God and so I don't know what soul and spirit are supposed to mean to me.
I remember when I was reading 'The Artist's Way', which made repeated reference to God, but also suggested that if one did not believe in God in a religious sense, then she could feel free to substitute the acronym 'Good Orderly Direction'. Ick.
Maybe I cannot embrace this book because I am conflicted, convoluted, contradictory, and tainted rather than pure and furthermore, I am not seeking to purify. I am not seeking to distill things down to their essences; I would rather cull countless weird artifact after weird artifact and explore irreconcilable facets.
I like layers. I like gradations. This poetry seems to be a little more about black & white dichotomies and I don't like to view things that way.
Things are always filtered through many other things, but filtering things does not always make them more basic and elemental. Sometimes it makes them more complex and difficult to navigate.
There are certain poems I like. So far my favorite has been "Ten Lives in Mental Ilness" and hopefully I will encounter some others that work better for me.
***
Finished it--and I still feel pretty much the same as noted above.
Certainly, there were some pieces I liked and some lines I liked, but overall it was a little too swept up into the breezy spirits of bluebirds and such.
I tend to like specific lines like, 'In your head is the smallest lion that has ever lived'.
I tend to dislike the sweeping proclamations about love and soul and spirit and the great vision of art.
I tend to dislike when poetic speakers seem to be presenting themselves as some sort of visionary.
I like to visualize and be provoked and respond to what's been evoked--but I don't so much like to ponder one person's grand and overzealous notions about the state of things.
***
I am a dissenter and a blasphemer.
Just kidding, but I must diverge from the general consensus that seems to have surrounded this book in a buzzing, glowing bubble.
I'm not done with it yet, but so far I am only giving it 2 3/4 stars.
I do appreciate the risk taken by offering a collection that is a significant stylistic departure from a lot of contemporary poetry these days. However, this style is not my style and doesn't really resonate for me.
It certainly does seem to have resonated for many other readers. I have heard a lot of praise for how refreshing it is. I have a heard a lot of laudatory remarks about how honest it is.
I am not sure what makes this book strike people as being more honest than any number of other books. Is it the relatively pared down style, the relatively straightforward usage of language that does not rely heavily upon figures of speech or even very specific imagery, for that matter?
In one poem, the speaker states,
"There is shit on my hands
When I have been playing around with specifics.
Love your lover. You are a lover."
Well, I like specifics--and I don't relate to this poetry's seeming disdain for artifice or complexity. This poetry seems to regard artifice and complexity as liars and unneccessary clutter, but I do not agree. I do not think that weeding out figures of speech or winnowing things down to simple statements is necessarily a more honest approach or that it necessarily comes closer to the truth--or at least certainly not everyone's truth. It is just another approach, just another style.
Perhaps this poetry is trying to get down to the essence of things--but statements like 'Love your lover. You are a lover.' do not strike me as particularly enlightening epiphanies or summations (maybe they're not meant to be; maybe they're meant to be more like small celebrations). Others may disagree and they are welcome to.
I think that there are many different kinds of honesty, truth, verisimilitude, authenticity, and suchlike. This poetry may well be authentic in its own way and by its own standards and by its own logic, but it not THE truth. It is A truth.
I think that 'AWE' is an apt title for this book, because it seems to convey a certain tone of child-like wonder and perhaps that comes across as quite refreshing to some readers. To me, it often comes across as strangely overly earnest and sometimes simplistic which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but...
I especially don't relate to the repeated references to 'soul' and 'spirit' and 'God'. Frankly, I really dislike the words 'soul' and 'spirit'. They don't mean anything to me or even evoke much of anything for me. Of course, every reader is going to bring her own interpretations to poetry and I have no problem with ambiguity or certain kinds of abstraction, but those words strike me as so abstract as to be almost meaningless, unless one is coming from a certain sort of Christian or spiritual background, which I am not. This poetry probably thinks that I am spiritually bankrupt.
The logic of this poetry makes me feel like I am being unaccepting by not being willing to lovingly embrace words like 'soul' and 'spirit'. The logic of this poetry seems to be seeking to purify. It makes me feel like I'm standing in line to receive some holy sacrament, except that I don't believe in God and so I don't know what soul and spirit are supposed to mean to me.
I remember when I was reading 'The Artist's Way', which made repeated reference to God, but also suggested that if one did not believe in God in a religious sense, then she could feel free to substitute the acronym 'Good Orderly Direction'. Ick.
Maybe I cannot embrace this book because I am conflicted, convoluted, contradictory, and tainted rather than pure and furthermore, I am not seeking to purify. I am not seeking to distill things down to their essences; I would rather cull countless weird artifact after weird artifact and explore irreconcilable facets.
I like layers. I like gradations. This poetry seems to be a little more about black & white dichotomies and I don't like to view things that way.
Things are always filtered through many other things, but filtering things does not always make them more basic and elemental. Sometimes it makes them more complex and difficult to navigate.
There are certain poems I like. So far my favorite has been "Ten Lives in Mental Ilness" and hopefully I will encounter some others that work better for me.
***
Finished it--and I still feel pretty much the same as noted above.
Certainly, there were some pieces I liked and some lines I liked, but overall it was a little too swept up into the breezy spirits of bluebirds and such.
I tend to like specific lines like, 'In your head is the smallest lion that has ever lived'.
I tend to dislike the sweeping proclamations about love and soul and spirit and the great vision of art.
I tend to dislike when poetic speakers seem to be presenting themselves as some sort of visionary.
I like to visualize and be provoked and respond to what's been evoked--but I don't so much like to ponder one person's grand and overzealous notions about the state of things.
May 2, 2008
Awe?
No.
Awful.
All the moving parts that make poetry so, well, moving have been cut away and stripped out of this work. I know Lasky is considered brilliant in some circles. She beats her readers over the head with her oh-so-superior intellect, her oh-so-spare and clever phrasing. ("Sweet Death!")
But I'm having none of it. All the soul, all the joy, all the music has been excised, leaving behind only a brittle, stylish shell.
I'm sure those who love this style of poetry will have lists of reasons why they disagree with me, or say I just didn't get it, and they never liked me anyway. But I don't care.
As a lover of words and a reader who often goes to poetry to find the sublime, this overproduced, underwrought collection of words is nothing like actual poetry.
No.
Awful.
All the moving parts that make poetry so, well, moving have been cut away and stripped out of this work. I know Lasky is considered brilliant in some circles. She beats her readers over the head with her oh-so-superior intellect, her oh-so-spare and clever phrasing. ("Sweet Death!")
But I'm having none of it. All the soul, all the joy, all the music has been excised, leaving behind only a brittle, stylish shell.
I'm sure those who love this style of poetry will have lists of reasons why they disagree with me, or say I just didn't get it, and they never liked me anyway. But I don't care.
As a lover of words and a reader who often goes to poetry to find the sublime, this overproduced, underwrought collection of words is nothing like actual poetry.
July 24, 2007
So often I feel I am trying to read the poetry of peers and loving their presence and noticing what they are doing and I like it well enough but also kind of feel like I am supposed to like those whiskers pre-dyed into jeans and I hate the whiskers pre-dyed into jeans. Dorothea gets right at the bone with these elemental, Blakean contemporary poems. Her mind can withstand the sun, one might think, and bring it's noisy bright shingles into your mind too, or else, the sheer force of her will burn up all the detritus and lies. As someone who is always looking for the subtle assertion of faith and truth, I was glad to be reminded, faith and truth are not subtle.
July 23, 2007
Gorgeous poems that locate awe in the every day, that present stingingly true observations about love and, particularly, the peculiar power of female friendships, poems saturated with muscular imagery and starring birds, angels, the sun, and the color red. A poetry book so fleshy you could suggest it to die-hard prose readers and expect them to fare well, from an interesting and complicated mind.
Um, is it obvious that I loved it?
Ok, good. Please to read it.
Um, is it obvious that I loved it?
Ok, good. Please to read it.
April 28, 2009
These poems are the lucite jewels dropped through a torn pocket in evacuation from a childhood apartment on another continent: bright and effortless and current at first reading, and growing almost unbearably heavy with essential meaning and a nostalgia for the infinite as their echo and color waltz into memory. They’re as immediate as snapshots & longed-for as the happy faces of the lost in those snapshots. Snap them up and don’t lose them.
September 30, 2007
I LOVE THIS BOOK!
I LOVE IT!
I LOVE IT!
Read
June 14, 2023opening with ; LOVE it ! now,
i see the first line of the GoodReads desc is: 'If the book of Revelations had been scribbled in the diary of a precocious fourteen-year-old girl, the prophecies might look something like Awe. ' Ok! very ! interesting. maybe that's not all wrong. As I was reading this, I was thinking about the super soupy-mishmash form? genre? that we call wisdom literature, in poetry. In 20thc anglophone poetry this is, to me, people like Jorie Graham, and Eliot's Four Quartets (which I think are probably the Classic example). Wisdom lit is kind of thought of as much older, often biblical, certainly spiritual & ancient. I'm not un-fond of the above description - I don't think Dorothea would find the 'fourteen-year-old girl' an issue. I mentioned prev with Rome the frank o'hara THING & it is So Bizarre & So Lovely to combine that with Lasky's LOVE for her best friend her negotiating around/evasion/internalising interactions with men & in this collection, a wisdom, awe,
we are one thing, bleating a
somber, scurrying lullaby to
Lapsing pinkish angels
her erotic poems too have this charge to them, awe, which I think isn't apart from wisdom. only, you have to squint a little. In On Old Ideas
O the lovely bankteller, like a moose he
rode my spirit quite outside my clothes
and chrysanthemums sprouted I assure you
out of my nipples when he kissed them.
I'm really just , happy here , her energy delights me. & remembers what it is she's doing. in Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light
In the fleshy fans I stood and thought of Charles
Charles was me and I was love
The birds, however, were parts of language
I hate language and, yes, I hate you
I hate me and everything else, but I do not hate Charles
i see the first line of the GoodReads desc is: 'If the book of Revelations had been scribbled in the diary of a precocious fourteen-year-old girl, the prophecies might look something like Awe. ' Ok! very ! interesting. maybe that's not all wrong. As I was reading this, I was thinking about the super soupy-mishmash form? genre? that we call wisdom literature, in poetry. In 20thc anglophone poetry this is, to me, people like Jorie Graham, and Eliot's Four Quartets (which I think are probably the Classic example). Wisdom lit is kind of thought of as much older, often biblical, certainly spiritual & ancient. I'm not un-fond of the above description - I don't think Dorothea would find the 'fourteen-year-old girl' an issue. I mentioned prev with Rome the frank o'hara THING & it is So Bizarre & So Lovely to combine that with Lasky's LOVE for her best friend her negotiating around/evasion/internalising interactions with men & in this collection, a wisdom, awe,
we are one thing, bleating a
somber, scurrying lullaby to
Lapsing pinkish angels
her erotic poems too have this charge to them, awe, which I think isn't apart from wisdom. only, you have to squint a little. In On Old Ideas
O the lovely bankteller, like a moose he
rode my spirit quite outside my clothes
and chrysanthemums sprouted I assure you
out of my nipples when he kissed them.
I'm really just , happy here , her energy delights me. & remembers what it is she's doing. in Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light
In the fleshy fans I stood and thought of Charles
Charles was me and I was love
The birds, however, were parts of language
I hate language and, yes, I hate you
I hate me and everything else, but I do not hate Charles
December 20, 2007
I really loved this book. It's defintely one of my favorites of 2007. It's a terrific book with a focus on beauty. But not the ordinary way beauty is often written. This book is more like an out-of-control, wild kind of thing. Its themes are big: God, Love, the UNIVERSE. It's a book that lives in imagination. The thing I really liked about this book is that the poetry feels HONEST. Like, it's the kind of poetry I imagine the poet herself is continually surprised by. The kind of poetry that the poet can't believe, herself, that she wrote. That's just speculation, of course, but that's how the poetry feels. And I hope only to read that kind of poetry.
This book's full of punches to the solar plexus, and that seems rare to come by in contemporary poetry.
You should probably find a copy and read it.
This book's full of punches to the solar plexus, and that seems rare to come by in contemporary poetry.
You should probably find a copy and read it.
October 4, 2018
Basically, I want to make out with this book.
I'll write a "real" review later, but here's a quickie: I love the mix of colloquial tone with elevated language, and even throwbacks like "O" and "!" which, Dottie, I usually can't stand. But you get away with it. Because I said so and so did Wave Books.
There are also these wham-bam-hit-you-in-the-face-because-they-came-out-of-nowhere images. And they're good ones. Really good. And I like that. It makes me want to put a deflated balloon over a child's mouth. Some poems can seem really fun and playful and then come screeching into a really deep and powerful ending (and not in a cheesy way, in a SERIOUSLY AMAZING way). It makes my ribcage dance with glee.
I'll write a "real" review later, but here's a quickie: I love the mix of colloquial tone with elevated language, and even throwbacks like "O" and "!" which, Dottie, I usually can't stand. But you get away with it. Because I said so and so did Wave Books.
There are also these wham-bam-hit-you-in-the-face-because-they-came-out-of-nowhere images. And they're good ones. Really good. And I like that. It makes me want to put a deflated balloon over a child's mouth. Some poems can seem really fun and playful and then come screeching into a really deep and powerful ending (and not in a cheesy way, in a SERIOUSLY AMAZING way). It makes my ribcage dance with glee.
April 14, 2010
the title says it all. this book. this book you have to read.
September 13, 2007
What everyone else said!
May 7, 2011
Still reading. But it's really, really, really good, and you should really, really, really buy it.
December 24, 2013
Poetry continues to be a leap of faith for me. I just crack open the spine and let the words hit me. It's usually not that violent, but often as sudden as violence can be, in that suddenly I latch onto to something, suddenly I'll have let go and gone with the current of the line. I never understand, or rarely have any experience like cognizance of what I'm reading, but maybe that's not what the whole deal is about. More likely, the deal is greater than I credit it. What I can say about Dorothea Lasky is that she took me. Her evocative images and reverence made reading illuminating, even if I must admit to be mostly in the dark. So, I continue my journey off the main road of comfort and into unmapped territories. This doesn't make for insightful reviews, however, it's a crucial vehicle to bring me voices I would otherwise never hear.
January 11, 2008
I can be fairly jealous when I read books by poets my own age whose work is fantastic. Maybe this makes me a bad person. But in Ms. Lasky's case, I was completely won over, and any feelings of "I want to be you" turned into, "I want to hang out with you." She's got humor and is completely guileless. It's wonderful. Plus, I think she's at least 6 months older than me...
July 23, 2007
Hear Dorothea Lasky read "The Process of Explication" from her book, AWE:
http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/...
http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/...
July 7, 2008
This book is clever, associative, imaginative, surreal. But there's something so informal, so off the cuff about it. I can't say it's not emotive but it's guarded too, and I can see the strengths of this poetry but somehow it's not for me.
October 19, 2007
there should really be six stars for this.
January 18, 2008
Dottie's reading at the Writers House on Jan. 17 will soon be on PennSound...it left us all breathless. Check out my short review, forthcoming in Bitch magazine.
May 23, 2018
Precocious, farcical, and ironic confessionalism seems too clever by half, but Lasky consistently and charmingly pulls it off. The repetition and the matter-of-factness and a child-like not-quite-innocence really permeate the collection. I thought I would find it coy or cloying at times, but somehow as that approaches Lasky manages to pull pick or hit about just the right striking image or necessary ironic distance. While there are some rough spots--this is definitely a debut collection--it's a very strong, readable, and original collection that introduced Lasky's very particular poetic voice.
February 16, 2023
Sincere and beautifully confessional. Fascinating to see how this collection almost predicted the sentiments poetry and people in general would express a decade and a half later.
July 31, 2015
AWE = bland, bland, bland.
Poetry now
is nothing more than
a few plain sentences
truncated by random line breaks.
People aren't concerned
about skill anymore.
High school Tumblr poets
are equal to Lasky
in execution and depth.
Compare LILACS
to LILAC FIELD.
I agree,
that is like comparing
Mozart to
Rebecca Black.
Now back to AWE.
It is rather non-poetic.
Here's an example:
"The rain whistled.
A taxi brought me to your apartment building
And there I stood.
I had dreamed a dream
Of us in a bedroom.
The light shining upon us in white sheets.
You were singing me a song of your sailing days
And in the dream
I reached deep in you and pulled out a cardinal
Which in bright red
Flew out the window."
Compare the above to this:
"Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam’s neighbors."
Miniver Cheevy by KO!
Poetry now
is nothing more than
a few plain sentences
truncated by random line breaks.
People aren't concerned
about skill anymore.
High school Tumblr poets
are equal to Lasky
in execution and depth.
Compare LILACS
to LILAC FIELD.
I agree,
that is like comparing
Mozart to
Rebecca Black.
Now back to AWE.
It is rather non-poetic.
Here's an example:
"The rain whistled.
A taxi brought me to your apartment building
And there I stood.
I had dreamed a dream
Of us in a bedroom.
The light shining upon us in white sheets.
You were singing me a song of your sailing days
And in the dream
I reached deep in you and pulled out a cardinal
Which in bright red
Flew out the window."
Compare the above to this:
"Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam’s neighbors."
Miniver Cheevy by KO!
November 11, 2011
I think Dorothea Lasky is amazing. One of my favorite lines from "I Was Once Very Smart" is
Being smart means your mind
Has been whipped by the large whisk of God.
Her poems in this collection get to the meat of it all (I mean life). They aren't easy to read and I imagine they aren't supposed to be, which is why this collection gets four stars from me: because it hurt to read them, they scared me in the same way that I already scare myself late at night. I would give it five stars for the genius, because she's not afraid to scare us or to talk about all the things that aren't pretty while writing so beautifully.
Being smart means your mind
Has been whipped by the large whisk of God.
Her poems in this collection get to the meat of it all (I mean life). They aren't easy to read and I imagine they aren't supposed to be, which is why this collection gets four stars from me: because it hurt to read them, they scared me in the same way that I already scare myself late at night. I would give it five stars for the genius, because she's not afraid to scare us or to talk about all the things that aren't pretty while writing so beautifully.
September 14, 2008
One of the books of poetry I've most enjoyed of late. I think it's something about the tone--strong, yet whimsical, able to laugh at itself even in misery. Also very surreal. "The constellations all form in the shapes of rats/ And the world from above is blue and brown and slightly sweet smelling./ And inside God, the world of the heart rots and blooms."
April 12, 2009
Lasky shows some amazing stuff in this first book. Her voice is sweet, dazzling, and lethal. And when she uses the word 'soul' and 'God' you are still wowed. Probably anyone else would give this 5, I'm giving 4 from some weird editorial stinginess. Probably all my 5s should be 6s, all the 4s 5. Yes, it's silly.
May 29, 2009
An original voice I might have overlooked if I hadn't heard her read. Glad I didn't. She is funny, using a kind of flattened observational mode to cover over what, as a reader, you begin to sense at the core of the book: a deep sincerity and confused sadness.
Read
October 9, 2007One of the best first books of poems I've read in a good while.
July 9, 2009
I thought it quite forgettable. So shoot me.
July 6, 2017
this book is now full of dogears and stars in blue magic marker. this was my introduction to the poet's work and gawd knows i'll be reading more. her imagery and style evoked Anne Sexton to me. there's an earnestness and an urgency to the poems. if as Dorothea writes, "A poem is like a sparkly ring./ It must be glittering at different points as the light hits it." (The Sign Element and the Ability of the Speech Animal), this book shimmers. And it does.
July 3, 2019
I didn't wholly love Milk but I loved a lot of it, so I moved backwards and I liked this one less. Someone in an early poem says "stop with these surrealistic tendencies!" and I agree. The strongest parts are the most raw and simple. The parts where I drift are surreal and opaque in a way where I don't really care to wonder what's being obscured. Though, Ten Lives in Mental Illness was perhaps my favorite section of the book, and by no means did it avoid the surreal. I'll still try another.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews