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The Performance of Becoming Human
Winner of the 2016 National Book Award in Poetry. Daniel Borzutzky’s new collection of poetry, The Performance of Becoming Human, draws hemispheric connections between the US and Latin America, specifically touching upon issues relating to border and immigration policies, economic disparity, political violence, and the disturbing rhetoric of capitalism and bureaucracies. To become human is to navigate these borders, including those of institutions, the realities of over- and under-development, and the economies of privatization, in which humans endure state-sanctioned and systemic abuses. Borzutzky, whose writing Eileen Myles has described as “violent, perverse, and tender” in its portrayal of “American and global horror,” adds another chapter to a growing and important compilation of work that asks what it means to a be both a unitedstatesian and a globalized subject whose body is “shared between the earth, the state, and the bank.”
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2016
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1357 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Borzutzky
29 books39 followersDaniel Borzutzky is a Chicago-based poet and translator. His collection The Performance of Becoming Human won the 2016 National Book Award.
The son of Chilean immigrants, Borzutzky's work often addresses immigration, worker exploitation, political corruption, and economic disparity. He teaches at Wright College.
The son of Chilean immigrants, Borzutzky's work often addresses immigration, worker exploitation, political corruption, and economic disparity. He teaches at Wright College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
December 5, 2020
This is undeniably a very powerful collection of writing but, and I’m probably labelling myself as tragically unhip saying this, I have trouble seeing it as poetry.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t have a problem with free verse but, at some point, in my opinion, free verse almost ceases to be verse at all and just becomes somewhat lyrical prose. This book falls into that category for me, I’m afraid. I think a lot of it is that the lines are so long and have so little meter that they just read like prose.
I’ve reproduced my favourite poem from this book below and it’s probably no coincidence that it’s the piece that feels most like an actual poem to me:
Dream Song #17
They took my body to the forest
They asked me to climb a ladder
I did not want to climb a ladder
But they forced me to clumb the ladder
If you don’t climb the ladder
we will bury you in the mud
I had to decide should I die
by hanging or by burial
I climed the ladder and they wrapped
a belt around the thick limb of a tree
And when I could no longer breathe
they tossed me into a stream
And I floated to the edge of the village
where someone prayed for my soul
It’s like this in a lullaby
for the end of the world;
The options for the end are endless
But this is not really a Lully
for the end of the world
It’s about the beginning
what happens when we start to rot
in the daylight
The way the light shines on
the ants and worms and parasites
loving our bodies
It’s about the swarms of dogs
gnawing our skin and bones
Do you know what it’s like
when a ghost licks your intestines
To avoid the hole
the children must sing sweetly, softly
To avoid the hole
they must fill their songs with love
Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t have a problem with free verse but, at some point, in my opinion, free verse almost ceases to be verse at all and just becomes somewhat lyrical prose. This book falls into that category for me, I’m afraid. I think a lot of it is that the lines are so long and have so little meter that they just read like prose.
I’ve reproduced my favourite poem from this book below and it’s probably no coincidence that it’s the piece that feels most like an actual poem to me:
Dream Song #17
They took my body to the forest
They asked me to climb a ladder
I did not want to climb a ladder
But they forced me to clumb the ladder
If you don’t climb the ladder
we will bury you in the mud
I had to decide should I die
by hanging or by burial
I climed the ladder and they wrapped
a belt around the thick limb of a tree
And when I could no longer breathe
they tossed me into a stream
And I floated to the edge of the village
where someone prayed for my soul
It’s like this in a lullaby
for the end of the world;
The options for the end are endless
But this is not really a Lully
for the end of the world
It’s about the beginning
what happens when we start to rot
in the daylight
The way the light shines on
the ants and worms and parasites
loving our bodies
It’s about the swarms of dogs
gnawing our skin and bones
Do you know what it’s like
when a ghost licks your intestines
To avoid the hole
the children must sing sweetly, softly
To avoid the hole
they must fill their songs with love
December 4, 2016
My interview with the author in the Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...
The son of Chilean-Jewish parents, poet and translator Daniel Borzutzky lives in Chicago and teaches at Wright College. His third full-length volume of poetry, the smart, angry, sad and satirical "The Performance of Becoming Human," published by the small, independent Brooklyn Arts Press, just won the National Book Award in poetry. Borzutzky concluded his acceptance speech by asking "that we all do our part to make sure that this country remains safe and welcoming." Borzutzky answered the following questions by email.
Q: The title of your winning book is intriguing because it's not just "Becoming Human" but "The Performance of Becoming Human" — why give it that title in general, and why add that performative element in particular?
A: The title evokes a Kafka story called "A Report to an Academy," about an African ape captured by European explorers and taken on a ship and tortured. In order to escape his predicament, he decides that as a "way out" he must learn how to become human, which he does by imitating his (captors), who drink and belch. When he finally breaks into speech, he dubs it a "performance." It's not a particularly noticeable line in the story, but it's stuck with me forever, both for the ways in which we perform speech acts to help us break into new communities, and for its implications about the limited choices available to those who are oppressed, imprisoned, tortured, etc. Human, then, for me, is something you are constantly becoming. And the choices we make about what kinds of humans we want to become are at the heart of everything I write. In the book, as with the world, privileged and powerful humans continuously choose to act shamefully, violently, abusively.Q: How does this book extend the work you've been doing for years in previous collections, including "The Book of Interfering Bodies" (2011) and "In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy" (2015)? Why do you think this one caught on to the extent of winning the National Book Award?
A: "The Performance of Becoming Human" is the third in a series of books (or perhaps a lifetime project) about how humans survive amid the worst types of state and social violence. Performance, unlike the others, is more directly thinking about borders, about the United States' relationship to Latin America, and our treatment of immigrants and foreigners. Perhaps the book's approach to thinking about war, racism and xenophobia, and the exploitation of the working class by banks and governments, seems particularly poignant right now. It's an angry book. I guess readers relate to its anger. I think it's hopeful to make art about how awful the world is. I guess I'm not alone.
Q: Political poetry by definition has to serve two masters — the poetic and the political. How do you balance the two, and not sacrifice lyricism and beauty to your political content, and vice versa?
A: To write "unpolitical" poetry is also a political choice. Where you position yourself in relation to the communities you occupy and observe is a political question. I'm not sure I could be lyrical or poetic or even interesting without writing politically about the things I care about. So, I'm not sure I'm serving two masters, since I can't really envision myself writing a poetry that is not political.
Q: You have a chapbook called "Bedtime Stories for the End of the World!" (parts of which are included in "The Performance of Becoming Human"). Do you really think the world is ending, and what can we do about it? What is the role of the poet/artist in the Anthropocene?
A: In the U.S., and in Chicago in particular, the public world has been dying while the private/privatized world has been thriving. More broadly, war, state violence, racist murder: these are all ways of killing the world. We should mourn all repressive violent abuse and murder as atrocities, the end of somebody's world, and the destruction of our own. Raul Zurita, the great Chilean poet I have translated, told me in an interview that during the Pinochet dictatorship he wanted to create "a poetry as powerful as the pain being delivered by the state." It's an impossible goal, but one I hope to emulate.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...
The son of Chilean-Jewish parents, poet and translator Daniel Borzutzky lives in Chicago and teaches at Wright College. His third full-length volume of poetry, the smart, angry, sad and satirical "The Performance of Becoming Human," published by the small, independent Brooklyn Arts Press, just won the National Book Award in poetry. Borzutzky concluded his acceptance speech by asking "that we all do our part to make sure that this country remains safe and welcoming." Borzutzky answered the following questions by email.
Q: The title of your winning book is intriguing because it's not just "Becoming Human" but "The Performance of Becoming Human" — why give it that title in general, and why add that performative element in particular?
A: The title evokes a Kafka story called "A Report to an Academy," about an African ape captured by European explorers and taken on a ship and tortured. In order to escape his predicament, he decides that as a "way out" he must learn how to become human, which he does by imitating his (captors), who drink and belch. When he finally breaks into speech, he dubs it a "performance." It's not a particularly noticeable line in the story, but it's stuck with me forever, both for the ways in which we perform speech acts to help us break into new communities, and for its implications about the limited choices available to those who are oppressed, imprisoned, tortured, etc. Human, then, for me, is something you are constantly becoming. And the choices we make about what kinds of humans we want to become are at the heart of everything I write. In the book, as with the world, privileged and powerful humans continuously choose to act shamefully, violently, abusively.Q: How does this book extend the work you've been doing for years in previous collections, including "The Book of Interfering Bodies" (2011) and "In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy" (2015)? Why do you think this one caught on to the extent of winning the National Book Award?
A: "The Performance of Becoming Human" is the third in a series of books (or perhaps a lifetime project) about how humans survive amid the worst types of state and social violence. Performance, unlike the others, is more directly thinking about borders, about the United States' relationship to Latin America, and our treatment of immigrants and foreigners. Perhaps the book's approach to thinking about war, racism and xenophobia, and the exploitation of the working class by banks and governments, seems particularly poignant right now. It's an angry book. I guess readers relate to its anger. I think it's hopeful to make art about how awful the world is. I guess I'm not alone.
Q: Political poetry by definition has to serve two masters — the poetic and the political. How do you balance the two, and not sacrifice lyricism and beauty to your political content, and vice versa?
A: To write "unpolitical" poetry is also a political choice. Where you position yourself in relation to the communities you occupy and observe is a political question. I'm not sure I could be lyrical or poetic or even interesting without writing politically about the things I care about. So, I'm not sure I'm serving two masters, since I can't really envision myself writing a poetry that is not political.
Q: You have a chapbook called "Bedtime Stories for the End of the World!" (parts of which are included in "The Performance of Becoming Human"). Do you really think the world is ending, and what can we do about it? What is the role of the poet/artist in the Anthropocene?
A: In the U.S., and in Chicago in particular, the public world has been dying while the private/privatized world has been thriving. More broadly, war, state violence, racist murder: these are all ways of killing the world. We should mourn all repressive violent abuse and murder as atrocities, the end of somebody's world, and the destruction of our own. Raul Zurita, the great Chilean poet I have translated, told me in an interview that during the Pinochet dictatorship he wanted to create "a poetry as powerful as the pain being delivered by the state." It's an impossible goal, but one I hope to emulate.
May 21, 2017
I almost didn't check this out at the library when it finally came in because I read so much poetry in April, I was feeling a little burned out. But this did win the National Book Award for poetry this past year, so I went ahead. I'm so glad I did; I loved these poems. I can tell because before I'd finished, I'd already marked his other collections as "to-read."
Part of the appeal of this collection is the themes of borders, migrant workers, and invisible populations. I have been reading intentionally on these topics, but they feel even more relevant that they did a year ago when this collection came out.
My favorites:
Dream Song #423
Archive (which has the best line - "I am writing a story of love in the time of data fascism."
Obliged to Perform in Darkness
You may hear the poet read from this collection on YouTube.
Part of the appeal of this collection is the themes of borders, migrant workers, and invisible populations. I have been reading intentionally on these topics, but they feel even more relevant that they did a year ago when this collection came out.
My favorites:
Dream Song #423
Archive (which has the best line - "I am writing a story of love in the time of data fascism."
Obliged to Perform in Darkness
You may hear the poet read from this collection on YouTube.
March 12, 2017
3 stars -- but one deducted because I'm so salty it won an NBA over LOOK.
March 8, 2017
Really good book - like most everything Brooklyn Arts Press puts out under the eye of editor Joe Pan. First half of the book, especially, spoke tome. Can't wait to read more of Daniel's work.
March 19, 2017
"This is, after all, a bedtime story for the end of the world."
It started out as something I recognized, talking about the dehumanization of refugees and what we are willing to do to save human lives (usually always in exchange for something else) and then became more gruesome and chilling than I imagined it would. I could feel myself reading faster and more frantically the further I got in the book -- almost as if it were simulating the end of the world coming closer and closer.
Definitely not a poetry book for every reader, but worth the read if you can stomach it.
It started out as something I recognized, talking about the dehumanization of refugees and what we are willing to do to save human lives (
Definitely not a poetry book for every reader, but worth the read if you can stomach it.
February 27, 2017
Borzutzky has a bad attitude about capitalism. Specifically, its treatment of immigrants, women, minorities, and the poor. He refers repeatedly to, “the rotten carcass economy.” His images are visceral, brutal and true, and he expresses them bluntly, plainly and brilliantly.
December 30, 2016
Dark, gorey, sometimes thought-provoking, often incomprehensible.
February 22, 2017
There are a few things that are different about this collection. I did not have a favorite poem out of the whole book nor dislike any one thing in particular. I can’t say I understood much of what Borzutzky was trying to do here but he’s a National Book Award Finalist and I’m just an MFA candidate. Worth a read or two. Borrowed my copy from the library so as long as I get it back by the AM, no fines and that means reading this only cost me my time and that was a worthwhile investment. So on to the lines I really loved.
“What do you make of this darkness that surrounds us?” – p. 19 (from The Performance of Becoming Human)
“And this is where the story should end.” – p. 24 (from In the Blazing Cities of Your Rotten Carcass Mouth)
“I wear my wife’s lipstick as I put on my white shirt and tie and slick back my hair in the style of every other man in every other city in every other office in every other corner of this stupid fucking world” – p. 42 (from Memories of my Overdevelopment)
“They say: Poet your favorite poet from now on is my boot” – p. 55 (from The Privatized Waters of Dawn)
We say the sky over this country is a liquid dripping from your mouth and the night is a minuscule explosion in your eyes // We say the sky is a night hiding itself in the leaves of the trees covered in the history of our people’s violence” – p. 58 (from Archive)
“The best dictators don’t kill their subjects rather they make their subjects kill each other” – p. 68 (from The Broken Testimony)
“What do you make of this darkness that surrounds us?” – p. 19 (from The Performance of Becoming Human)
“And this is where the story should end.” – p. 24 (from In the Blazing Cities of Your Rotten Carcass Mouth)
“I wear my wife’s lipstick as I put on my white shirt and tie and slick back my hair in the style of every other man in every other city in every other office in every other corner of this stupid fucking world” – p. 42 (from Memories of my Overdevelopment)
“They say: Poet your favorite poet from now on is my boot” – p. 55 (from The Privatized Waters of Dawn)
We say the sky over this country is a liquid dripping from your mouth and the night is a minuscule explosion in your eyes // We say the sky is a night hiding itself in the leaves of the trees covered in the history of our people’s violence” – p. 58 (from Archive)
“The best dictators don’t kill their subjects rather they make their subjects kill each other” – p. 68 (from The Broken Testimony)
April 17, 2017
I read Daniel Borzutzky's The Performance of Becoming Human (Brooklyn Arts Press) on my way to the nation's capitol, and found it to be the perfect read before entering the belly of the beast. Like every book, it's political and personal. Here, mutilations and stabbings and shootings abound, leaving a pile of festering carcasses in their wake. You'll find that even blood and the "waters of dawn" are privatized in this book-length critique of empire and state violence (usually perpetrated by "unitedstatesians").
Meticulous collage, juxtaposition, and punctuation play are the book's primary organizing strategies, evoking horror, laughter, revulsion, and surprise sentence by largely un-end-stopped sentence, question marks and ellipses occasionally dotting these these suppositions, provocations, queries, unpunchlined jokes, and desperate run-ons.
"The best way to end a sentence is with the word "blank," one of the book's few end-stopped sentences posits, upending, upsetting one of the book's projects while simultaneously affirming another, finally serving to engagingly unsettle this human, something this book did over and over.
Meticulous collage, juxtaposition, and punctuation play are the book's primary organizing strategies, evoking horror, laughter, revulsion, and surprise sentence by largely un-end-stopped sentence, question marks and ellipses occasionally dotting these these suppositions, provocations, queries, unpunchlined jokes, and desperate run-ons.
"The best way to end a sentence is with the word "blank," one of the book's few end-stopped sentences posits, upending, upsetting one of the book's projects while simultaneously affirming another, finally serving to engagingly unsettle this human, something this book did over and over.
Read
August 28, 2017"I cost much less than my historical value and the bank has no choice but to deny the loan I need in order to buy myself back.
My deflationary wounds.
My privatized blood.
My rotten carcass sinking into the privatized waters of dawn."
This is a flavor of poetry I really like. Long sentences and descriptive with one-liners that take your breath away. Truthfully, I feel like I understood about 5% of the work, but I liked the journey Daniel Borzutzky took me on and I am going to be research him as soon as I am done writing this!
March 14, 2016
ME GUSTO MUCHO MUCHO! THIS IS A VERY GOOD BOOK BOOK
Read
December 7, 2016Damn.
December 13, 2016
Intense, unrelenting. The sort of poetry that doesn't necessarily connect with you in the moment and then randomly sinks in like a wild dream.
November 28, 2017
Not at all what I anticipated but, despite its often vulgar and “in your face” and “wake the f__k up” message, pretty darned good writing.
Daniel Borzutzky won the 2016 NBA for Poetry with this one. Deserving of the nomination but not deserving of the award. Rita Dove’s collection was far better and far more compelling to me, thus far.
Not to be a complete downer, however, there are some pretty darned good poems here like:
“Let Light Shine Out of Darkness” ... “For it is hard to move in a body so congested with images of mutilation.”
“The Performance of Becoming Human” ... “Everything is always about the performance of becoming human.”
“The Gross and Borderless Body” ... “The immigrant is a racially ambiguous stateless poet from a country whose name for unitedstatesians is hard to pronounce.” OR “It totally fucking sucks to have to travel the world to leave my people and village, and to get stuck in some shit town in Indiana where the portions at the restaurants I can’t afford to eat in, except when I am taken to lunch by a minister or a social worker or a rabbi, could provide multiple meals for like eight of my nephews and nieces.”
“Memories of my Overdevelopment” ... “I want to talk, today, about my overdevelopment[.] But instead I pay someone to wipe the dust from my bookshelves and tables.”
“The Broken Testimony” ... “The best dictators don’t kill their subjects rather they make their subjects kill each other.”
Borzutzky writes about the soul-killing and nation-killing problem of illegal immigration, employers taking advantage of illegal aliens, out-of-control bureaucrats, our oft-spoiled nation and our hungry, consumerist, devouring human nature. We are always evolving toward becoming human but, due to the social issues facing us, often fail. As noted herein above, his comments find their mark searing brutal imagery into the reader’s psyche.
Good but not the award winning work I expected. Nevertheless, it really and truly is worth the time to read this one. Rock on, me Hearties!
Daniel Borzutzky won the 2016 NBA for Poetry with this one. Deserving of the nomination but not deserving of the award. Rita Dove’s collection was far better and far more compelling to me, thus far.
Not to be a complete downer, however, there are some pretty darned good poems here like:
“Let Light Shine Out of Darkness” ... “For it is hard to move in a body so congested with images of mutilation.”
“The Performance of Becoming Human” ... “Everything is always about the performance of becoming human.”
“The Gross and Borderless Body” ... “The immigrant is a racially ambiguous stateless poet from a country whose name for unitedstatesians is hard to pronounce.” OR “It totally fucking sucks to have to travel the world to leave my people and village, and to get stuck in some shit town in Indiana where the portions at the restaurants I can’t afford to eat in, except when I am taken to lunch by a minister or a social worker or a rabbi, could provide multiple meals for like eight of my nephews and nieces.”
“Memories of my Overdevelopment” ... “I want to talk, today, about my overdevelopment[.] But instead I pay someone to wipe the dust from my bookshelves and tables.”
“The Broken Testimony” ... “The best dictators don’t kill their subjects rather they make their subjects kill each other.”
Borzutzky writes about the soul-killing and nation-killing problem of illegal immigration, employers taking advantage of illegal aliens, out-of-control bureaucrats, our oft-spoiled nation and our hungry, consumerist, devouring human nature. We are always evolving toward becoming human but, due to the social issues facing us, often fail. As noted herein above, his comments find their mark searing brutal imagery into the reader’s psyche.
Good but not the award winning work I expected. Nevertheless, it really and truly is worth the time to read this one. Rock on, me Hearties!
July 23, 2018
Obviously deserves 5 stars since it won the National Book Award, but I gave it 4 because not 100% of it was accessible to me - not his fault. I did mark a couple parts.
p. 24 - And this is where the story should end. But bedtime stories for the end of the world don't end where they are supposed to end. They end awkwardly, in the middle of some mess that was probably not worth making to begin with. Here's an alternative ending.
p. 44 - To be alive is a spiritual mission in which you must get from birth to death without killing yourself.
p. 24 - And this is where the story should end. But bedtime stories for the end of the world don't end where they are supposed to end. They end awkwardly, in the middle of some mess that was probably not worth making to begin with. Here's an alternative ending.
p. 44 - To be alive is a spiritual mission in which you must get from birth to death without killing yourself.
May 15, 2018
Favorite poem: Memories of my Overdevelopment
"You are the god of hunger in a cage that grows as you get smaller"
"You are the god of hunger in a cage that grows as you get smaller"
April 13, 2022
Incredible collection of political & protest poetry.
June 2, 2021
Incredibly political, violent, and good, but will take a few reads to understand most of it.
July 28, 2023
nothing to say about this collection other than a blurb on the back praises it in the following way — “here, the socially engaged bro-poet is mercifully broken, relieved of his epic monumentality” what
February 4, 2017
This is, after all, a bedtime story for the end of the world.
For the life of me, I can't remember how this book was recommended to me. Whether I read something, or chose it on a whim, or someone told me I would like it... however it happened, it wound up on my holds shelf at the library tonight and I dove into it when I got home.
But seriously, friends:
What do you make of this darkness that surrounds us?
The poetry in this book is violent, visceral, angry. It grabbed my attention and did not let go. I will read this at least twice more before taking it back to the library. So many lines kept jumping out at me.
The best dictators don't kill their subjects rather they make their subjects kill each other.
*
Love and loneliness fill you with different types of illusions.
Loneliness fills you with the desire for people to tell you how to live your life.
Love, on the other hand, fills you with the desire for everyone to see you living your life.
*
According to the data, it is impossible for rich people to be friends with poor people.
This, according to the data, is true in all societies.
*
Warning: Not for the squeamish.
For the life of me, I can't remember how this book was recommended to me. Whether I read something, or chose it on a whim, or someone told me I would like it... however it happened, it wound up on my holds shelf at the library tonight and I dove into it when I got home.
But seriously, friends:
What do you make of this darkness that surrounds us?
The poetry in this book is violent, visceral, angry. It grabbed my attention and did not let go. I will read this at least twice more before taking it back to the library. So many lines kept jumping out at me.
The best dictators don't kill their subjects rather they make their subjects kill each other.
*
Love and loneliness fill you with different types of illusions.
Loneliness fills you with the desire for people to tell you how to live your life.
Love, on the other hand, fills you with the desire for everyone to see you living your life.
*
According to the data, it is impossible for rich people to be friends with poor people.
This, according to the data, is true in all societies.
*
Warning: Not for the squeamish.
August 22, 2017
On my desk is the dystopian Danial Borutzky and the Pottery Barn poetry of Billy Collins. Billy Collins should not have been the poet laureate and Daniel Borzutsky should not have won a Pulitzer. There's got to be a happy medium between Borutzky's fantastic imagery serving the purpose of utter terror and hopelessness and Collins' feeble thoughts on life. I know things are very tough for a lot of people, but is the image of his girlfriend's face smashed literally into the street pavement what gets people through all that? If it's satire, how about a moment of relief that gives the satire some context, a place to understand it is satire. Again, wonderful, energetic and ever-flowing imagery, but to a purpose that lacks anything but the most simple message.
December 24, 2016
A wonderful thought provoking collection of poems that rage against the world as it is today. Every person that reads this book may come to a totally different interpretation but that is the joy of it. To me the book is an indictment of conformity in which people are like slabs of meat. The government is also given the full fire with Borzutsky's guns blazing brightly. Another theme is displaced people forced to struggle with situations outside their control. A well deserved award winning book.
November 30, 2016
Intense and dark and (perhaps unfortunately) timely for this "unitedstatesian."
December 25, 2016
Shattering. Like Frederick Seidel suddenly got Roberto Bolaño's politics.
February 7, 2017
a disgusted primal scream of poetry. the poetry of body horror and accumulation of the unbelievable injustice of the world like a palimpsest. the laughter that comes with absurdity.
April 21, 2018
If Roberto Bolano had been an exile emigre in Chicago rather than Mexico City, perhaps he would've written similar poetry.
Quotes:
This poem would be better it if took place in The Saloon of Good Fortune. It would be better if a man jumped off the bar and onto my back as I was reciting it. If I caught him on my back and smashed him into a table. If one of his hoodlum buddies smashed me over the head with a bottle of tequila. This poem would be better with just the right amount of sex, alcohol, violence and 1950s border-noir.
And the man in my arms said: Are they ordinary people, these trapped voices? / They are ordinary, I said. Demolished, relentless, alone.
I went to the river and found a body builder who would not stop running. / He was enormous, wearing only boxer trunks, and he complained that his lover was overusing the word "cock." / He was frantically running and he couldn't stop running and I was looking for the boat and the body builder was screaming about his lover's overuse of the word "cock" and for a moment he spoke of a Jewish centaur on the bank of the river and he kept running and he wouldn't stop running and his boxing trunks were red and silky and when I asked why he was running he shouted that his life was a symbol for something that doesn't exist.
Bedtime stories for the end of the world don't end where they are supposed to end. / They end awkwardly, in the middle of some mess that was probably not worth making to begin with.
unitedstatesians
These tribal feuds date back to the 14th century when a short guy with a long nose slept with the wife of a tall guy with a small nose / Since then, our peoples have hated each other and many of us are in the diaspora / This is not an academic problem
The dream immigrant is put to work in the basement of a chemical storage facility that has recently flooded and is filled with excrement, nuclear waste, and the carcasses of washed-up animals / He finishes sucking up the water from the floor
I dream of a beautiful scoop of ice cream, vanilla bean with hints of mint and jasmine, in a silver dish on a terrace overlooking a war-torn paradise whose citizens are mending their bodies in the aftermath of a Socialist revolution / We are sharing the resources, says a loudspeaker / Now stop eating that ice cream / You are stealing milk that belongs to our children
A belly said: They have privatized the forest, the clouds, the sky, the rocks, the water, the trees, the bees, the flowers, the moon / A mouth said: The workers must defend against the privatization of everything
Revolutionary violence disgusts me, the voice said / A voice said: My bones were torn apart first by the police and then by the revolutionaries / They were struggling to solve the same question: / What does it mean to give up your body for an abstraction?
Cadavers, chickens, olives, Easter eggs, bones, blood, words, sand, teeth, children, mountains, deserts, leaves, ghosts, sewers, rivers, mouths, humiliations, calloused hands, sperm, bubbles, wind, blood, rain
the therapist who told me that I was afraid of every emotion in the universe
Love and loneliness fill you with different types of illusions
We went to the store to buy coffee and there were so many types of coffee I wanted to beat the crap out of the guy who insisted I hear the story of every type of coffee, where it was roasted, how it was roasted, was it locally roasted or was it roasted in Italy, what flavors was it infused with, so many stupid fucking questions about the coffee that it was almost impossible to believe that just a few days before I had been in a city where there was no coffee / They had run out of coffee / No one knew when they would get more coffee / 18,000 children die every day because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs / (How does that make you feel, compadre)
My therapist assured me it is not my responsibility that my neighbors are suffering / To be alive is a spiritual mission in which you must get from birth to death without killing yourself
there is no one here to make my life feel any less mediocre than it already is
According to the data, it is impossible for rich people to be friends with poor people. / This, according to the data, is true in all societies.
Quotes:
This poem would be better it if took place in The Saloon of Good Fortune. It would be better if a man jumped off the bar and onto my back as I was reciting it. If I caught him on my back and smashed him into a table. If one of his hoodlum buddies smashed me over the head with a bottle of tequila. This poem would be better with just the right amount of sex, alcohol, violence and 1950s border-noir.
And the man in my arms said: Are they ordinary people, these trapped voices? / They are ordinary, I said. Demolished, relentless, alone.
I went to the river and found a body builder who would not stop running. / He was enormous, wearing only boxer trunks, and he complained that his lover was overusing the word "cock." / He was frantically running and he couldn't stop running and I was looking for the boat and the body builder was screaming about his lover's overuse of the word "cock" and for a moment he spoke of a Jewish centaur on the bank of the river and he kept running and he wouldn't stop running and his boxing trunks were red and silky and when I asked why he was running he shouted that his life was a symbol for something that doesn't exist.
Bedtime stories for the end of the world don't end where they are supposed to end. / They end awkwardly, in the middle of some mess that was probably not worth making to begin with.
unitedstatesians
These tribal feuds date back to the 14th century when a short guy with a long nose slept with the wife of a tall guy with a small nose / Since then, our peoples have hated each other and many of us are in the diaspora / This is not an academic problem
The dream immigrant is put to work in the basement of a chemical storage facility that has recently flooded and is filled with excrement, nuclear waste, and the carcasses of washed-up animals / He finishes sucking up the water from the floor
I dream of a beautiful scoop of ice cream, vanilla bean with hints of mint and jasmine, in a silver dish on a terrace overlooking a war-torn paradise whose citizens are mending their bodies in the aftermath of a Socialist revolution / We are sharing the resources, says a loudspeaker / Now stop eating that ice cream / You are stealing milk that belongs to our children
A belly said: They have privatized the forest, the clouds, the sky, the rocks, the water, the trees, the bees, the flowers, the moon / A mouth said: The workers must defend against the privatization of everything
Revolutionary violence disgusts me, the voice said / A voice said: My bones were torn apart first by the police and then by the revolutionaries / They were struggling to solve the same question: / What does it mean to give up your body for an abstraction?
Cadavers, chickens, olives, Easter eggs, bones, blood, words, sand, teeth, children, mountains, deserts, leaves, ghosts, sewers, rivers, mouths, humiliations, calloused hands, sperm, bubbles, wind, blood, rain
the therapist who told me that I was afraid of every emotion in the universe
Love and loneliness fill you with different types of illusions
We went to the store to buy coffee and there were so many types of coffee I wanted to beat the crap out of the guy who insisted I hear the story of every type of coffee, where it was roasted, how it was roasted, was it locally roasted or was it roasted in Italy, what flavors was it infused with, so many stupid fucking questions about the coffee that it was almost impossible to believe that just a few days before I had been in a city where there was no coffee / They had run out of coffee / No one knew when they would get more coffee / 18,000 children die every day because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs / (How does that make you feel, compadre)
My therapist assured me it is not my responsibility that my neighbors are suffering / To be alive is a spiritual mission in which you must get from birth to death without killing yourself
there is no one here to make my life feel any less mediocre than it already is
According to the data, it is impossible for rich people to be friends with poor people. / This, according to the data, is true in all societies.
October 18, 2017
Part of the problem with loving books is that when you religiously read book blogs, listen to book podcasts on your runs, and watch booktube videos before going to bed at night, you end up with a lot of books that you want to read. And sometimes – let’s be honest, a lot of the time – you get distracted from what you want to read in the long term by the shiny new book you MUST READ RIGHT NOW. I’m not a huge fan of planning out everything I read, but I’ve found the Read Harder Challenge has been pretty good at getting me to read books that have languished on my TBR. I’ll say the same for my Year of Toni Morrison challenge – even though I’m spending the last quarter of the year catching up with her, I’m really quite delighted that I decided to do this. So, all of this is to say that I’ve decided I want to make more of an effort to read each year’s prize-winning books (from 2016 on). This decision is how I came to find myself reading this National Book Award-winning collection of poetry.
Now, I don’t read much poetry. In fact, I was going to skip over the Pulitzer and National Book Award poetry winners based on my belief that I just don’t understand poetry. Then the spirit of the Read Harder Challenge caught me, and I thought, What’s the point of this if I don’t read outside of my comfort zone? Hell, maybe I’ll end up liking poetry if I, you know, actually read some poetry! After finishing my first selection I’ll admit that it wasn’t half bad. It was, if you can believe it, quite good.
This collection of poetry grapples with themes pertinent to our times. What does it mean to be an American? How do we treat others we deem do not belong? How do we steal others’ stories and tell them as our own? Many of these poems deal with immigration and violence, shedding light on some of the horrific acts committed against those we believe to be less than human. Writing of a group of immigrants left to suffocate in an abandoned truck, a very real tragedy that has happened more than once, Borzutzky says:
In “Memories of My Overdevelopment,” Borzutzky calls bullshit on those who turn a blind eye to such catastrophes:
And, in “The Broken Testimony,” he is vicious in his excoriation of the insidiousness of overarching political oppression:
The Performance of Becoming Human is, undoubtedly, a discourse on politics, one that is born of necessity. It is born of seeing others who look like you discarded like yesterday’s trash. It is born of seeing others who speak your language denied the right and dignity of a living wage. It is born of the privileged who cry, You’ve been given every chance; if you don’t like it leave. This is the politics of life – not faceless policies that affect “others,” but the consequences of those policies on the ones they are designed to hurt most.
I can’t claim that I understood everything Borzutzky included in this collection – poetry still eludes me to some extent. However, I’m pleased that I dared myself to try and I feel both uncomfortable and provoked by this book. I know that, but for the grace of God, I am not one of the most vulnerable at this point in our nation’s history. Reading these poems obligates me to question my own privilege, to think about how I might perpetuate my own ignorance by shutting off the news when I just don’t feel like knowing. I look at this title and I am forced to consider the necessity of that performance, of having to become human.
https://thethousandproject.wordpress....
Now, I don’t read much poetry. In fact, I was going to skip over the Pulitzer and National Book Award poetry winners based on my belief that I just don’t understand poetry. Then the spirit of the Read Harder Challenge caught me, and I thought, What’s the point of this if I don’t read outside of my comfort zone? Hell, maybe I’ll end up liking poetry if I, you know, actually read some poetry! After finishing my first selection I’ll admit that it wasn’t half bad. It was, if you can believe it, quite good.
This collection of poetry grapples with themes pertinent to our times. What does it mean to be an American? How do we treat others we deem do not belong? How do we steal others’ stories and tell them as our own? Many of these poems deal with immigration and violence, shedding light on some of the horrific acts committed against those we believe to be less than human. Writing of a group of immigrants left to suffocate in an abandoned truck, a very real tragedy that has happened more than once, Borzutzky says:
He didn’t mean to be gone for sixteen hours
He didn’t mean to drink so much he passed out and left them in a truck with no air or water
Oh well
Only a couple died
Ugly people
In “Memories of My Overdevelopment,” Borzutzky calls bullshit on those who turn a blind eye to such catastrophes:
My therapist assured me it is not my responsibility that my neighbors are suffering…
It’s not my fault that you are sick and you are dying because I am also sick and I am also dying
It’s just that my death is preventable and yours is inevitable
And unlike you my ignorance keeps me from being implicated in the system in which I am involucrated
I could list all the ways I might possibly die but it would be more useful to spend the time telling you that it is not my fault that your life is so fucking miserable
And, in “The Broken Testimony,” he is vicious in his excoriation of the insidiousness of overarching political oppression:
The best dictators don’t kill their subjects rather they make their subjects kill each other
I have never fired anyone, says the owner of the plantation
Instead, I have always managed to make the undesirable leave on their own volition
The Performance of Becoming Human is, undoubtedly, a discourse on politics, one that is born of necessity. It is born of seeing others who look like you discarded like yesterday’s trash. It is born of seeing others who speak your language denied the right and dignity of a living wage. It is born of the privileged who cry, You’ve been given every chance; if you don’t like it leave. This is the politics of life – not faceless policies that affect “others,” but the consequences of those policies on the ones they are designed to hurt most.
I can’t claim that I understood everything Borzutzky included in this collection – poetry still eludes me to some extent. However, I’m pleased that I dared myself to try and I feel both uncomfortable and provoked by this book. I know that, but for the grace of God, I am not one of the most vulnerable at this point in our nation’s history. Reading these poems obligates me to question my own privilege, to think about how I might perpetuate my own ignorance by shutting off the news when I just don’t feel like knowing. I look at this title and I am forced to consider the necessity of that performance, of having to become human.
https://thethousandproject.wordpress....
May 26, 2018
3.5 for originality and intelligence. If Walt Whitman lived in a global, urban, industrial time, this is what he would write. There is all the interconnectedness of humanity and nature, (though less pristine and optimistic here than Leaves of Grass) of common good, of the impact we have on each other and the earth. Borzutzky definitely has the pulse of our modern era and pop culture and the amazing capacity to zoom out and in to universal trends and truths to the tiny details that impact the individual. He doesn't shy away from what humans have wrought upon the earth and each other and it's very visceral at times, which kept me from loving it. I respect it, though. Mostly in prose poem form, the pieces provoke thought and reflection. Sample from Dream Song #423: "In the last verse we all sang a song about the Statue of Liberty, the fastest woman in all of Mexico/I love her, sing the generals and CEOs/I love her, sing the Bolivians and Peruvians/ I love her sing the beggars and bankers/I love her rusted body sing the pornographers and the doctors/I love her reverie, her darkness, her malleability, sing the professors/I love her, sings the poet because she reminds me of my mother and my mother reminds me of myself and I remind myself of my father and all the mouths he needs to feed." National Book Award winner 2016 and Chicago guy.
January 15, 2022
This book is/will be powerful for others—surely the subject matter is—but the overall style and execution felt excruciating for me. These chaotic, prose-y, often tangental poems have two modes of refrain: gruesome body horror ("rotten carcass mouth" repeats throughout, along with highly specific images of torture, starvation, sexual violence, and dismemberment) and heady abstraction ("privatized waters of dawn"; "privatized cellar of the economy"; "my love is a fragile animal scraping against a whiff of vapor"; "you write justice into my flesh and I feel something").
Surely there is tension created between lacing these two modes together, especially considering 'body' as the embodied experience, feeling pain, hunger, shame, and 'body' as in a governmental or legislative body controlling, brutalizing, and dehumanizing the bodies it does not recognize as fully human (illegal immigrants, for example).
I felt disoriented (ie confused) for long stretches but I couldn't stomach reading it twice, or slower.
Surely there is tension created between lacing these two modes together, especially considering 'body' as the embodied experience, feeling pain, hunger, shame, and 'body' as in a governmental or legislative body controlling, brutalizing, and dehumanizing the bodies it does not recognize as fully human (illegal immigrants, for example).
I felt disoriented (ie confused) for long stretches but I couldn't stomach reading it twice, or slower.
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