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Pretty
Ahren Warner's second collection of poems opens with the sequence Lutece, te a raw paean to the Paris it inhabits that flits between past and present and offers both adoration and horror in equal measure. Elsewhere, London 'licks and laps'; an anonymous man 'works his bones with a micro-plane' and translations of Baudelaire and Kojeve rub shoulders with Kurt Cobain and 'Little Lord Tory-Tit'. More capricious, fleshly and darker than Warner's previous work, Pretty culminates in thirteen poems hovering between a collage, translation and performance of Antonin Artaud's Le Pese-nerfs, which bring Pretty to a beautifully ugly end.
80 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 2013
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August 9, 2018I remember reading a poem by Ahren Warner in an article (from his first collection Confer I believe) and I loved it. So I was pretty excited to get my hands on one of his collections.
Sadly, I didn't like this collection as much as I had hoped I would. I think the French (which reminded me of Patrick White's excessive use in the second part of The Aunt's Story) pulled me out of the poems.
Poems I enjoyed:
XIII Mademoiselle
Four Poems After Antonin Artaud
[1947-J, 1947] after Baudelaire
[Nice 'n easy, 1999]
I also liked XII, XIII which was on page 60 of the ebook I was reading.
Sadly, I didn't like this collection as much as I had hoped I would. I think the French (which reminded me of Patrick White's excessive use in the second part of The Aunt's Story) pulled me out of the poems.
Poems I enjoyed:
XIII Mademoiselle
Four Poems After Antonin Artaud
[1947-J, 1947] after Baudelaire
[Nice 'n easy, 1999]
I also liked XII, XIII which was on page 60 of the ebook I was reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review