Zombie Vomit Mad Libs

by Duy Doan

In Zombie Vomit Mad Libs, the climate has changed, and what mostly remains are zombies meandering through a world where we only have brief memories--where connection (human and zombie) is now only made possible thanks to bits of the salvaged wreckage that was left behind in the apocalypse.
The poems pay homage to horror movies, riff on childhood mad libs, and scatter Vietnamese diacritics over text about iPhones, neurotransmitters, phobias, substance abuse, fleas, and vomit. The stakes are high: these pages are preoccupied with suicide from the start, especially with the deaths and legacies of poet Anne Sexton and Hong Kong actor/singer Leslie Cheung, but they also find ways to smile and serve from fixed narratives, which is where the zombies come to the forefront, wandering through a world where our only shared experiences are fading memories of the final times we encountered chance momentousness in our lifetimes.

Macabre humor is combined with formal inventiveness.

Drawing from broad swaths of history, literature, and pop culture, the forms in this book and the rewriting of conventional zombie narratives enable the poems to avoid the presumptuousness of wisdom. The poems instead expend their energy through playfulness, unassuming declarative statements, and sparse questions.

Folks who love horror movies, especially the little theaters of love and friendship in these films, might appreciate the candor and arrangement of data in lieu of insight and wisdom.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

Published November 26, 2024

Reviews

[Simone LaShea · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book I read this month for the Sealey Challenge. And I must say, I think we are off to a great start. I will admit, I picked this book due to the title and the cover (sometimes we do judge books by their cover…)

But I am so glad that was the case. I found myself rereading a lot of these poems before moving to the next. I loved this. It felt raw and emotional but also so random and bizarre?? What a collection of works.

My favorites would have to be:
Mechanical Pencil, “Wong Kar-Wai Cat”, Zombie (page 60), and The Autobiography of Frogs

[Mya Matteo · Rating 5 out of 5]

such an eclectic, interesting collection. don't know who I would recommend it to but I really enjoyed the ride! if you think the quote below is funny you might like the whole thing.

“ants shouldn’t do/
burpees because /
they would /
burp themselves /
into oblivion.”

lol

[Margaryta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really not my type of collection. I expected something different, based on the title and the blurbs praising it. Some of the poems felt gimmicky, like the Sonic poem that both blurbs mention ("Sonnet the Hedgehog") or the Zombie series of poems, which were hard to place in relation to everything else. The movie scene poems were more retellings, maybe seeing the source material would have made it clearer what the other dimension to them was. I keep feeling like the "zombie" part was the key to the collection, the fact that there were several poems about poets who had committed suicide and about Leslie Cheung specifically. It's probably just not a poetry collection for me. The explanation on diacritics at the end is lost on someone who doesn't have any background in tonal languages, so I know I definitely missed a layer of word play in the way Doan used the various accents on English words. Maybe hearing these read out loud is the answer. On the page, "Zombie Vomit Mad Libs" was hard to make heads or tails of.

[Lora · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection brings in film retellings, suicide, mood shifting chemicals, zombies, mad libs, Vietnam, etc. There are a lot of things happening in the books and different references coming in. Some points felt stronger than others in bringing these motifs together. But there are places where it really hit, especially in the last few poems in the book, when the tension’s already been built up. (This would be a great book to read in one sitting.) It also does really interesting things on the page, and uses the white space and Vietnamese diacritics on English. It was exciting to read and think about form.

[cafaco]

My favorite thing about this collection is how it reorients familiar images or ideas. Watching a movie isn’t the same as retelling it, so how does reading a film change our perception of it? How does a wall of suicide dates make us see the medium and those poets differently? Is there a legacy or propensity for suicide in poetry? Is it any deterrence for poets? For readers? I think the Mad Libs format and title works really well for this collection since, at its core, it’s all about bringing something unexpected to the familiar and using that to make someone laugh or think or challenge their expectations. I was destined to love any poem titled “Sonnet the Hedgehog.”

[Dol Leander · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. This collection is disjointed in the only way that could ever be stated positively and it uses this to hold conversation with human creation. Đoàn has a striking awareness that the medium is also both a visual and auditory experience, artfully using the white space on the page and Vietnamese diacritics to enhance his work. It's a lovely reminder of what poetry can be, if one just has the correct heartfelt and playful attitude to execute it.

[Breanna Mae · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5⭐️)
first book of the 🦭-ey challenge!!