Colony Collapse Metaphor

by Philip Jenks

"Into the deeper shoals of syntax strolls Philip Jenks, sans machete, instead with a watering can filled to the brim with acto-juice precisely calculated to make those nouns and verbs and articles shoot to record heights and tangles."—Kevin Killian Philip Jenks's poems land like bolts of superheated, suppurated, the "inverted afterthought" of destiny that awaits the speaker of one poem, or absurdities that make a devastating sense, as when Jenks asks about "temperature of God" while invoking the fires of Auschwitz, or when he imagines meth-laced syringes puncturing a user's skin from the inside out. These poems draw blood. FOX HOLE —where the heart sits.
"Body song"
Of a prayer, you.
Ensemble
Ablated They pulled the skin and fur clean off,
But the fox, panting, blinked with
What was left of eyes. Peeled.
"Strung out"
Will I aid and abet
With inaction?
There is no difference
Between killing and allowing to die. Philip Jenks lives in Chicago, Illinois, where he teaches English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His previous volumes are On the Cave You Live In (2002), My First Painting will be "The Accuser" (2005), and Disappearing Address (2010). He has toured and recorded with Neil Michael Hagerty as a member of The Howling Hex. His academic specializations are in gender studies, animal rights, and political philosophy. He likes good music and pinball.

88 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/prog...

http://fence.fenceportal.org/v12n2/je...

http://voca.arizona.edu/index.php?rea...

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archi...

http://www.h-ngm-n.com/h_ngm_n-6/Phil...

http://www.culturalsociety.org/mini02...

http://deliriouslapel.blogspot.com/20...

www.puertodelsol.org/jenks-muench-two...

http://gutcultcom/Site/litjourn8/fron...

Books include On the Cave You Live In (Flood) and My First Painting will be The Accuser (Zephyr Press 2005). Also chapbooks – The Elms Left Elm Street (Plane Bukt, 1994) and How Many of You Are You? (Dusie, 2006). I collaborate with Simone Muench. Our full-length book, "Disappearing Address" was published by BlazeVox Books, 2010. Our collaborative chapbook, "Little Visceral Carnival" was published by Cinematheque Press, 2009. We have published in The Canary, Zoland, Moonlit, barrelhouse, and Eleven Eleven and elsewhere. My poems have appeared in Chicago Review, Traverse, GutCult, h_ngm_n, The Canary, The Gig, Monkey Puzzle, LVNG, The Poker...others

I am NOT in ANY way the author of The Global-Investor Book of Investing Rules: Invaluable Advice from 150 Master Investors, 500 of the Most Witty, Acerbic & Erudite Things Ever Said about Money, Stock Market Trading Rules: Collected Wisdom From 80 International Stock Market Experts, The Investors' Resource Book, Logic Problems for Money Minds: 42 Conundrums, Problems and Riddles to Test Your Brain, The Harriman Book Of Investing Rules: Invaluable Advice from 150 Master Investors , The Official High-Flier's Handbook: How to Succeed in Business Without an MBA , The Book of Investing Rules: Rules on Investing from the World's Leading Fund Managers, Sector Analysts, Traders, Economists and Financial Journalists ....All due respects to the Philip Jenks, as an anticapitalist
radical, these are simply not the sorts of books I would write about capitalism. Good ol' goodreads has yet to change this and has combined us. So, I contain multitudes. I didn't write those books.
.http://fence.fenceportal.org/v12n2/je...

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archi...

http://www.h-ngm-n.com/h_ngm_n-6/Phil...

http://www.culturalsociety.org/mini02...

http://deliriouslapel.blogspot.com/20...

www.puertodelsol.org/jenks-muench-two...

http://gutcultcom/Site/litjourn8/fron...

Reviews

[Taylor Napolsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

The syntax is interesting and I really liked the mood of the book.

[Matt McBride · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hard review to write since part of what I see the point of to book is to remove the frames we use to make sense of poetry, or perhaps to draw attention to the arbitrary nature of those frames. Jenks' poetry reminds me of circuit bent electronica. And yet, like circuit bent electronica, there is still music if you can learn to listen. Here language is contorted, via phonetic spellings, homophones, missing punctuation, etc... and yet still "works." I felt like the end of the book started to create an idiom of this and use it as a form to address the world, but that could in part be an illusion as I got more used to the style. It's definitely a read that rewards the different attention it asks for.