Tremolo

by Spencer Short

A winner of the National Poetry Series 2000 Open Competition, this collection from a fresh, playful, and surprising young voice in American poetry was selected by U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

i've been a fan of spencer since the day he passed his poems out in class. the teacher of course. read and re reading and re reading. highly recommended.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say it's bad or boring, but I somehow expected more. One poem in here is truly spectacular: "And I Have Mastered the Speed & Strength Which Is the Armor of the World." It has humor but also deep emotion. The people in it seem real, like they have a history. There are glimpses of this in other poems, but the emotional heart seems absent. I even hear the music of Dean Young in some of these poems, but Short doesn't build the emotional tension in the same way.

[Robert Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is easier to write poetry than it is to write about poetry. Tremolo confounds in all the right ways, like making out with a one-eyed girl under a pocket-watch moon wearing a hat that will be "the right hat for one day & one day only."

[T.D. Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

spencer short's my favorite, and has been for many years. i don't know why.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's Design is Like a Forrest and a Forrest is No Design at All.

[françois]

Nothing much to say about it. It reads like a book by Dean Young, which reads like a not-really interesting translation into English of Robert Desnos. Reheated surrealism.

[Kristine Muslim · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a boatload of incomprehensibles and wordplay. I stopped reading at page 10.

[Pss · Rating 4 out of 5]

See

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Rae Jager · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life in college, and I still can't really explain why.

Grasping.

[Rachel Y · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. Love the something bitter and complicated in his voice. Whenever I'd start to fade or get lazy, a line would slap me in the face.