Slant Six

by Erin Belieu

Honored as one of "10 Favorite Books of 2014" —Dwight Garner, The New York Times



Honored as a "Standout Book of 2014" —American Poet magazine

“Belieu oscillates between dark humor, self-consciousness, and pointed satire in a fourth collection that’s equal-opportunity in its critique. In the world of these poems, no one is innocent; everyone is confined to the complexity, absurdity, and, above all, fallibility of their human condition…. Anchoring the work is a conversational, lyrical speaker willing to implicate herself as part of the political and social constructs she criticizes, as when she depicts a Southern American culture still reeling from its history of social injustice, and even the Civil War: “Don’t tell us/ history. Nobody hearts a cemetery/ like we do.” It’s a fantastic collection; Belieu desires not to dress issues up but confront them.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review





“A smart and nettling book of poems — about love, sex, social class and our free-floating anxieties — from a writer who is a comedian of the human spirit. Her crisp free verse has as many subcurrents as a magnetic field.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"Politics, pop culture, and parenthood appear here along with reflections on our collective moments of hypocrisy and hope. '12-Step,' one of the most resonant entries, begins innocuously with a meditation about lighthouses, then the speaker gathers speed and confidence and reaches a risky but profound one-word stanza—'myself'—before ending with a haunting inversion of the Serenity Prayer used by Alcoholics Anonymous. Amid the quips and the elegant observations about immortality, Belieu's speakers never forget their responsibilities, or their possibilities." —Booklist



"From poem to poem in the smart, savvy Slant Six, Belieu channels an updated American idiom, one of stubborn in-betweenhood. Like the plain-spoken poetry that plumbed the depths of American consciousness in the 20th century, Belieu trawls the shallows of today’s America and finds just as much caught in its oily reflections as in its murkier subcurrents. It’s '[b]etter,' she suggests, 'to forget perfection.'" —The Boston Globe

“I’ve never read a poem by Erin Belieu that I didn’t want to immediately rip from its bindings so I could fold it up and carry around in my pockets and read so many times that the paper turned back into pulp. She’s just that good. That honest and brave and beautiful and wise and funny. She writes poems we need. Poems that say who I am and who you are and how and why we got to be this way. Poems that wonder if we can ever change. Poems that know us and show us and grace us. Poems that remember us and forget us and leave us dazzled in their dust. In Slant Six, she’s outdone herself. It’s a spellbinding, heart-opening beauty of a book.” —Cheryl Strayed



"Erin Belieu . . . is always ready to surprise, to astonish, and, ultimately, to defy comparison."—Boston Book Review

"[One] of America's finest poets."—Robert Olen Butler

Erin Belieu's fourth collection, Slant Six, is an inundation of the humor and horror in contemporary American life—from the last saltine cracked in the sleeve, to the kitty-cat calendar in an office cubicle. With its prophecies of impending destruction, and a simultaneous flood of respect for Americans, Erin Belieu's poems close like Ziploc bags around a human heart.

From "12-Step":

I am considering
lighthouses

in a completely new light—

their butch neutrality, their grand
but modest surfaces.

A lighthouse could appear
here at any moment.

I have been making this effort,
placing myself in uncomfortable positions,

only for the documented health benefits . . .

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 4, 2014

About the author

Associate Professor, MFA The Ohio State University (1992), MA Boston University (1995), specializes in poetry. Her first book, Infanta, was selected by Hayden Carruth for the National Poetry Series and was named one of the ten best books of 1995 by Library Journal, Washington Post Book World, and the National Book Critics' Circle. Her second collection, One Above and One Below, won the Ohioana Award and the Society of Midland Authors Award. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Slate, Nerve, The Yale Review, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, The New York Times, and others. She previously served as managing editor of AGNI.
Belieu's third poetry collection, Black Box, was published by Copper Canyon press in early 2007 and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Poems from Black Box appeared in places such as Ploughshares, Tin House and The Virginia Quarterly Review (and are available to read in the magazines' website archives). Her poem "The Last Of The Gentlemen Heartbreakers" was featured on the Poetry Daily website. Belieu also wrote as a featured poet for The Poetry Foundation website in July 2006. The daily blog she kept for the foundation can be found at www.poetryfoundation.org.
In September 2006, Belieu embarked on the Wave Press Poetry Bus Tour. Along with poets such as Matthew Zapruder, Joshua Beckman, Eileen Myles and Arthur Sze, Belieu traveled cross country in a tour bus, stopping to read from Black Box in places such as Seattle, Spokane, Missoula, Boise, Jackson Hole and Omaha.
In August 2009, Belieu co founded (with poet Cate Marvin) the organization VIDA: Women In Literary Arts whose mission is "to explore critical and cultural perceptions of writing by women through meaningful conversation and the exchange of ideas among existing and emerging literary communities." Since the organization's founding, VIDA has become a strong national media presence and Belieu has focused her writing on non fiction, responding to issues of gender bias in publishing in places such as Slate and The New York Times. In 2010, VIDA will be a sponsor of the AWP conference in Washington DC.
Belieu is presently at work on a non fiction memoir detailing her experiences in parenting a special needs child. New poems have appeared recently in Lit, 32 Poems and Prairie Schooner. Belieu is also the Artistic Director of the Port Townsend Writers Conference. The conference brings in nationally and internationally acclaimed poets and prose writers to work with participants every July on the island of Port Townsend, Washington.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Penetrating and insightful - Erin Belieu rips the Band-Aid off societies little cuts - first you don't feel it...but then the sting comes when you look closer. I thin we all need to look at what we mean when we say 'society' - so many different terms that have hidden meanings to different groups. This book really opened my eyes to this.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting poems. I especially liked the ones about parenting--both clever and moving. Hit me where I live.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes me think of my college class on Multiculturalism, which I didn't get, not really, not until years later. Standing there with a copy of Margaret Atwood's Good Bones, proclaiming "this is my culture," the professor asking me "what culture is that?' but I don't know I don't know I don't know. Patiently, she starts giving me words, "white, middle-class, college educated..."

Now I have more words, but still, mostly, I clutch this book in my hands and say "this is my culture." Recognizing myself in "Poem of Philosophical and Parenting Conundrums Written in an Election Year," bracing myself against feeling exactly like "When at a Certain Party in NYC" this fall, and then, of course, "Someone Asks, What Makes This Poem American?" which seems itself to be an answer to that question all those years ago in class, "what culture is that?"

These are poems of everyday life and familiarity and mine.

[D.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no other voice in contemporary poetry that fills me with such utter delight. Belieu takes the wide lens on the world; she sees the beauty and the humor in one keen sweep of a room: "looking for a spare tampon, you discover/that even their toothpaste is somehow more/desirable than yours." Or "Your sadness gets a perfect score/a 1600 on the GRE." But there's also incredible devotion--environmental, domestic and political--and Belieu is tender despite her satire. A poem about her father describes a woven sunflower wall hanging the father made in school: "You loved it so much/you wouldn't stop//making it." It is often in those moments where Belieu connects with her family, particularly her son, that she is most alive and loving. This is lively poetry; a shot in the arm; a burst of sunlight banishing familiar ghosts.

[Dallas Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been in a months-long poetry drought. Nothing, but nothing, was singing to me. Then I read Erin Belieu's Slant Six. Every poem in here has quotable lines—as a good book of poems should—but for now I'll go with, "I've given up sleep for dreaming / and art is still our only flying car," from the opening poem, "Ars Poetica for the Future." She takes on Saint Heaney in "I Growed No Potatoes to Write About, Sir," while "Energy Policy" and "Poem of Philosophical and Parental Conundrums Written in an Election Year" are two of the finest poems I have read about parenting. I'm already on my second reading of this smart, angular book, and I will come back for many more.

[Timothy Volpert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first section is absolutely killer, I loved every poem in it; full of wit, visceral description and insight. The book is kind of front-loaded though. There just weren't many poems that stood out to me in the rest of it. Definitely worth reading nonetheless, and nothing in the last to sections is ~bad~, just not terribly memorable.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slant Six offers an accessible entry point for infrequent readers of poetry. Many of the poems are thoughtful critiques of modern life and the strange preoccupations of many (most?) American consumers. Some are humorous. One passage describes pioneers who settled in the Midwest as, "not in fact heroic but, really, the chubby ones who lacked the imagination to go all the way to California."

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

When reading these poems it's often impossible to figure out why any of them look the way they do - why this many stanzas, why this many lines, why this word and not another - which is about the nicest way I could come up with to caution you away from this collection.

If you like clichés then I suppose this is your jam. It even begins with Plato's famous quip about love making everybody into poets - which is a clear sign this poet has read very little Plato. It also doesn't help that the next 60 pages have very little to do with love, creating poetry because of love, or even transformation in general. There is a long bit, though, about a person with a bumper sticker advising kindness who then oh-so-ironically cuts someone off in traffic and flips them the bird. Which is super hilarious and totally interesting, I swear.

Other reviewers, here and elsewhere, have greedily acknowledged that Slant Six is full of quotable lines, as if that was the point of literature, to be shareable via Twitter, distillable into 99-cent-taco-sized bits that anybody can consume and digest as quickly as last night's episode of The Big Bang Theory. That's an obsession my generation will pay for later in life. And while this collection is surely full of fine lines it's just as surely swelled with slop. It's the kind of book that urges you to pull a pen and cross out all the words that don't matter, of which there are many.

In spite of the proceeding, there is one gem amid the sludge, a stilted, breathless piece titled "Olentangy River" about much more than an unpronounceable body of water somewhere in the Midwest. If all you do is admire the cover art and then read this one poem, you'll be alright. If you wander farther afield it's your own fault.

[Jeannine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Belieu's latest book might be her best work yet. It is certainly the most disarming, the most casual yet intimate. Her poems here about bad parties, conversations about death with her son, and living in the American south are particular, precise, honest and entertaining. Read it!

[Jane Somers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might as well admit that I don't usually read poetry, but I've wanted to read Slant Six since reading the review in the New York Times months ago. I loved her wit and her biting observations of human nature.

[hh · Rating 5 out of 5]

pulling no punches.

[Philip Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

There may be no such thing as perfect. But this for me is perfectly accompanying me as I need. I'll take that as more than good enough.

[Rambling Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

wonderful!!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

as ever, a delight.

[Roxanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, really enjoyed this.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Time Machine" and "The Body Is a Big Sagacity".

[Claudio Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Slant Six , Erin Belieu weaves together a keen eye for form, a critical awareness of American mythology, and harsh criticism of contemporary American life into an insightful commentary on who we are and where we come from.

In her exploration of the absurdities, beauties, and subtle hypocrisies of American life, Belieu expertly moves between free verse and form -- using form only when the constraint adds to the poem and abandoning form when the poem demands freedom and exploration. In “H. Res. 21-1: Proposing the Ban of Push-Up Bras, etc.” Belieu offers a simple, yet elegant example of form meeting content:

 And what is beauty but
		 the absence of symmetry? (18) 

Throughout this poem, Belieu allows the lines to move, giving them permission to pull towards and push against one another as the poem demands. She refuses to ever let the poem settle into symmetry, lest it lose the beauty that Belieu exposes to the reader.

Although Belieu’s work is primarily interested in contemporary American life, the values it explores trace back all the way to the founding of the United States. Indeed, Slant Six draws the past into the present, highlighting how even as the world changes, the idealistic underpinnings of American live on, for better or for worse. In “Someone Asks, What Makes This Poem American?”, which introduces the first section of the book, Belieu answers that question “by driving around, which seems / to me the most American of activities” (7). In these powerful opening lines, Belieu simultaneously draws the reader into our modern obsession with fast cars, road trips, and freedom, while drawing us back to our roots: to the ideals of manifest destiny and creating a new life for yourself on the frontier. Belieu’s poetry enters into a conversation with the reader about what makes American life so American, and how our nation’s past mistakes and successes still shape us today.

Slant Six is more than just a rumination on contemporary American life, but rather a biting critique of the domestic American mythos. It draws to light the hypocrisies and inconsistencies we have all built our lives upon. Nothing illustrates this more than Belieu’s “Problem of the Domestic” -- a biting satire of American entitlement and egotism. Only in America, according to Belieu, could we “peevishly announce we need / to quit smoking while reaching for / the pack” (45). Whether we are lamenting our day-to-day issues while remaining intentionally ignorant of the greater problems plaguing the world, always seeking our happiness elsewhere (like on the frontier), rather than looking in front of us, or simply harming one another while espousing ideals of virtue and equality, Slant Six informs us, in the most concise way possible, of the need for compassion and awareness.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Belieu's poems seem to smirk: often shifting between darkly funny, manic, and vulnerable. Belieu's poetry are written in our more ironic "plain speech" whose idiom seems much less plain these days and more wry and adroitly complex. Some poems are can seem a trip in the surreal and yet veneer back into the sincerity very quickly-- a prime example being "Poem of Philosophical and Parenting Conundrums Written in an Election Year"and "Someone Asks, What Makes This Poem American?"

What can be lost in Belieu's smirking complexity is how tender some of the poems are and how honestly she renders family into verse in a time where that can seem increasingly hard to do.

[Richard Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful, ingenious , funny collection

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Teacher,

Midwest humor shining bright
love it~~

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erin Belieu has a distinct skill for painting a picture with words. This book was a pleasure to read and challenged my thinking.

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can honestly say that this collection of poetry caused me to search — not my soul, but for the definition of poetry. What is poetry?

I discovered that there are as many answers to that question as there are poets. If, though, the definition of poetry is, as one anonymous entry put it, “a painting made with words”, then this collection is not poetry. If poetry is as Wordsworth defined, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”, then this collection is not poetry. If, as Emily Dickinson is reported to have stated, “If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry”, then this collection is not poetry.

I wouldn’t call myself an “avid reader” of poetry, yet I’ve read my fair share. And, while I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a “lover” of poetry, I am absolutely a lover of brilliant writing. So, if somewhere in the myriad definitions for poetry there is one that says “poetry is a grouping of brilliant writing”..., then this collection is not poetry.

[S P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ars Poetica for the Future
The Rapture came
and went without incident,

but I put off folding my laundry,
just in case.

Also, from my inbox this morning,
subject header:

“Lesbian Torture Camps.”
The mind ricochets like a fly —

is there anything left for people
to do to people?

Meanwhile, my boyfriend
looks forward to the apocalypse

like a retirement party
he pretends he won’t be

attending, like those characters
in the movie who climb the highest

building, wanting to be the first ones
to welcome the spaceship.

In this world,

I’ve given up sleep for dreaming
and art is still our only flying car,

but I can’t recall when anticipation
became the substitute for hope.

Recently, C. said “Now we begin
the poems of our Great Middle Period.”

I imagine digging a series of small
holes, burying poems in Ziploc

baggies. I imagine them as baby teeth
knocked from the present’s mouth. (3)

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's totally unfair, I think, to review a book of poetry after one reading. That's what I'm doing here.

After that one reading, my impression was that a lot of these poems were kind of... glancing: a little too obvious, a little too much on the surface.

But a day later I'm still thinking about Belieu's poems. They apparently made more of an impression that I first realized. I'll be reading this one again.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

25/31
Oh. Oh. I forget how much I like Erin Belieu. And then she reminds me. I cannot even tell you which ones I liked because I liked them all. She is funny and sad, poignant and sharp. Yep.

[Lisa Keuss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated the sarcastic bent on topics such as politics, parenthood, and perfectionism. The poems attempt to shed light on many things unanswerable, in a tone that is lightheartedly serious.

[Constance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this poet!

[Dana Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“who isn’t a little more war than peace?”

[David M. M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the musicality and often frenetic rhythm of these poems. It's very nice to know that poems in this style resonate with people who aren't me. It gives me hope.

[Ethan Ksiazek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some standout modern stylings, especially in the beginning, but then devolved into another Buzzfeed single mom quirk tirade.