Why I Am White

by Mathias Svalina

Genres: Poetry

30 pages, Chapbook

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Svalina, the co-publisher of Octopus Books, loads this chapbook with a lot of great lines meditating (sometimes comically, sometimes obscurely) on the realities and "concepts" of being white.
Sample: "If you put thirty white boys in a room eventually they will grow into one Jeff Bridges & three to four Jeff Goldblums.Five of them will skin their knees. Two of them will lose all their teeth. They will grow cold & they will remove what remains of their identities for the steel drum & burned cds of Bob Marley's Legend."

[Brian Foley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd been waiting weeks for this, and when it came last night in the mail, I read the whole thing while the sausage thawed in the pan.
It may only be provocative because it's in the race room, not a very crowded room for white people, but this is conssidered a minor victory in the better of my two eyes.
The lesser eye, let's call him Fin; Fin is impressed by the semantic games and whimsical tone.
An impressive book well worth the slow speed in which my Wednnesday dinner developed.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

mathias svalina on whiteness. wonderfully nuanced poetry jumping from jeff bridges to kanye west to ordinary white things -- all reading like they're out loud by different voices even when it's quiet and you're all alone and you realize the room is white.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crazy, crazy book. Now I know not only why Mathias is white but why I am white as well. Audacious.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is this flarf? Not sure why anyone is white, this book does not clear that up at all.