What do you think?
Rate this book
The Polymers
The Polymers is a bold new work from one of our most ambitious poetic minds. Structured as an imaginary science project, the varied pieces in this collection investigate the intersection of poetry and chemicals, specifically plastics, attempting to understand their essential role in culture. Through various procedures, constraints, and formal mutations, the poems express the repeating structures fundamental to plastic molecules as they appear in cultural and linguistic behaviours such as arguments, anxieties, and trends. A wildly experimental and chemically reactive work, The Polymers thrills and provokes. You’ll never look at the world of a poem ― or the world itself ― in the same way again.
- GenresPoetry
128 pages, Paperback
First published April 9, 2013
4 people are currently reading
66 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 24, 2022
At what point is experimental poetry no longer experimental and just unreadable?
February 13, 2023
these are literally just words
February 3, 2015
I'm unsure about my final reaction to this collection. On one hand, it's doing everything I hate in contemporary poetry: obscurantism for the sake of obscurantism, refusal to address anything in the open or conversational, obliqueness and insistence upon being intellectual for its own sake. On the other hand, Dickinson clearly knows what he's doing; the showing of vocabulary, form, and thematics tying the whole book together is masterful, and I've always had a soft spot for literary experiments between content and presentation.
In the end, I think I'm happiest landing somewhere in the middle. If every book of poetry I read was like this, I'd give up poetry for good. That said, I think it's important to acknowledge an instance of mastercraft when it emerges, and perhaps it's only permissible because Dickinson is so good at it. The way he's clearly considered every little facet of this project, layering it with cute touches of unification and playfulness, made it a treat to read, even if I felt some of it was challenging with no purpose other than to be challenging. Sort of along the lines of Jake Kennedy, but more so.
That said, the opening poems blew me away, and even tho I lost my fervor somewhere in the middle, Dickinson managed to pull me back in at the end. I'd heartily recommend this book as a landmark in contemporary poetry, Canadian or otherwise, tho I'd caution budding poets to think twice before trying to imitate what's between the pages.
In the end, I think I'm happiest landing somewhere in the middle. If every book of poetry I read was like this, I'd give up poetry for good. That said, I think it's important to acknowledge an instance of mastercraft when it emerges, and perhaps it's only permissible because Dickinson is so good at it. The way he's clearly considered every little facet of this project, layering it with cute touches of unification and playfulness, made it a treat to read, even if I felt some of it was challenging with no purpose other than to be challenging. Sort of along the lines of Jake Kennedy, but more so.
That said, the opening poems blew me away, and even tho I lost my fervor somewhere in the middle, Dickinson managed to pull me back in at the end. I'd heartily recommend this book as a landmark in contemporary poetry, Canadian or otherwise, tho I'd caution budding poets to think twice before trying to imitate what's between the pages.
November 23, 2019
3.5 Had a more difficult time getting through this than Anatomic. The last part of the book was super cool though! Every time I finish one of Adam Dickinson's collections I go looking for another one.
November 4, 2025
THE POLYMERS
Rating: 3.679215433333 (verging on 4.9472201756)
How often does a book of poetry appear that would especially tantalize a chemist?
In a nutshell, The Polymers is awesome.
Were I chemically gifted, were I more inclined to think in terms of molecular composition, were I to see the world in terms of neoprene, cellophane and in building blocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and their multifarious linkages, were I to visualize the likes of polystyrene and polyethylene and get a kick out of their differences, where I to seriously drool about the polyamorous playfulness of carbohydrates and the pliable propensities of polypropylene, the protean possibilities of polyester, or just esters, which are really cool. By golly!! Then I'd be five-starring and six-starring this genius book of Adam Dickinson's.*****
I mean, there's no doubt, if I were as Aspergersey as a cellophane asparagus, I'd be beyond the moon for this hypertensive beyond cute compilation of macromolecular poetic fan fiction.
I'm with Dennis Lee on this: this is a landmark collection of gruesomely gourmet synthesizing and oh so bouncy prose poetry. The thing about it is, it takes itself so seriously as to have most of the fun quite sucked beside it. Though. It is funny and fun -- mostly when it doesn't use many words.
There are entire poems that are just graphics. These are so clever. And political!
Like "Honed Security Procedures Following the G-20 Toronto Summit Protests."
On a blank page at the back of The Polymers I noted my favourite poems, which I'll reread. To see if your likes are anything like my likes, I've got 'Carl Jung Steps Onto a Plane; Cigar? Toss it in a Can. It Is So Tragic; Hang-ups; Hyphens; Credit Card; Covalence. Figure 2; Dartetraiodoallwinene... and also On Again, Off Again, because I enjoy Brownian motion.
So, here's the thing that's dawning on my: is that Dickinson's poems are more deeply political than one would glean at first pass.
It could be that my poetic taste is somewhat too poetasterish? Not quite up to the challenge of Dickinson's so very technical touch. I gave Cartography and Walking 5 stars. (I think.) Because there he is a nerdy nature poet. Kingdom, Phylum I probably rated higher because here the vibe is biological (and...what is the word? archival? no, taxonomic.) I got a gas out of its (more accessible to me) topological and biological taxonomies. Nature is present. This matters to me.
In The Polymers nature is also present, only in a less common form. The poet faces us with the remarkable but less studied aspects of nature. We know plastic is everywhere in our world. But no poet before Dickinson has orchestrated a poetic assault on its verbal capaciousness.
Dickinson makes plastic talk poetry in our brains. And it's a language we are far from accustomed to.
Most brains maybe are not critically wired to get pleasure out of chemically-minded poetry. For his audacity in this Polymer project I'll give the book resounding 5 stars. Loving words and concepts, for that also The Polymers scores a heart-throbbing 5. What's amiss as far as these poems go, is that the part of my heart they set to singing is highly focussed (and out of shape) so that Dickinson's affects aren't effectively reaching it. There is an out-of-tuneness in play. This isn't Luciano Berio. It isn't even Phillip Glass. And it's eons away from Glenn Gould. But The Polymers is in the vein of Glenn Gould, were he playing Bach on all kinds of different drugs. Dickinson's poems to deploy a recombinant antinarrative thing. And on the AFFECT level, there is wide range of expression, all kinds of grief, humour and other 'emotions' being expressed.
The Polymers is worth another whirl. Maybe take it in smaller doses. Reading right through from beginning to end left my neurotransmitters in a state of shock. And awe.
Rating: 3.679215433333 (verging on 4.9472201756)
How often does a book of poetry appear that would especially tantalize a chemist?
In a nutshell, The Polymers is awesome.
Were I chemically gifted, were I more inclined to think in terms of molecular composition, were I to see the world in terms of neoprene, cellophane and in building blocks of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and their multifarious linkages, were I to visualize the likes of polystyrene and polyethylene and get a kick out of their differences, where I to seriously drool about the polyamorous playfulness of carbohydrates and the pliable propensities of polypropylene, the protean possibilities of polyester, or just esters, which are really cool. By golly!! Then I'd be five-starring and six-starring this genius book of Adam Dickinson's.*****
I mean, there's no doubt, if I were as Aspergersey as a cellophane asparagus, I'd be beyond the moon for this hypertensive beyond cute compilation of macromolecular poetic fan fiction.
I'm with Dennis Lee on this: this is a landmark collection of gruesomely gourmet synthesizing and oh so bouncy prose poetry. The thing about it is, it takes itself so seriously as to have most of the fun quite sucked beside it. Though. It is funny and fun -- mostly when it doesn't use many words.
There are entire poems that are just graphics. These are so clever. And political!
Like "Honed Security Procedures Following the G-20 Toronto Summit Protests."
On a blank page at the back of The Polymers I noted my favourite poems, which I'll reread. To see if your likes are anything like my likes, I've got 'Carl Jung Steps Onto a Plane; Cigar? Toss it in a Can. It Is So Tragic; Hang-ups; Hyphens; Credit Card; Covalence. Figure 2; Dartetraiodoallwinene... and also On Again, Off Again, because I enjoy Brownian motion.
So, here's the thing that's dawning on my: is that Dickinson's poems are more deeply political than one would glean at first pass.
It could be that my poetic taste is somewhat too poetasterish? Not quite up to the challenge of Dickinson's so very technical touch. I gave Cartography and Walking 5 stars. (I think.) Because there he is a nerdy nature poet. Kingdom, Phylum I probably rated higher because here the vibe is biological (and...what is the word? archival? no, taxonomic.) I got a gas out of its (more accessible to me) topological and biological taxonomies. Nature is present. This matters to me.
In The Polymers nature is also present, only in a less common form. The poet faces us with the remarkable but less studied aspects of nature. We know plastic is everywhere in our world. But no poet before Dickinson has orchestrated a poetic assault on its verbal capaciousness.
Dickinson makes plastic talk poetry in our brains. And it's a language we are far from accustomed to.
Most brains maybe are not critically wired to get pleasure out of chemically-minded poetry. For his audacity in this Polymer project I'll give the book resounding 5 stars. Loving words and concepts, for that also The Polymers scores a heart-throbbing 5. What's amiss as far as these poems go, is that the part of my heart they set to singing is highly focussed (and out of shape) so that Dickinson's affects aren't effectively reaching it. There is an out-of-tuneness in play. This isn't Luciano Berio. It isn't even Phillip Glass. And it's eons away from Glenn Gould. But The Polymers is in the vein of Glenn Gould, were he playing Bach on all kinds of different drugs. Dickinson's poems to deploy a recombinant antinarrative thing. And on the AFFECT level, there is wide range of expression, all kinds of grief, humour and other 'emotions' being expressed.
The Polymers is worth another whirl. Maybe take it in smaller doses. Reading right through from beginning to end left my neurotransmitters in a state of shock. And awe.
March 25, 2014
This is an impressive tour-de-force, combining prodigious scientific knowledge with a playful wit that can be downright dizzying. It's a book of poems for the 21st century. Eat it, or it will eat you.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews