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Poetry. Photography. Poems by Ivan Argüelles and photographs by Craig Stockfleth.

169 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

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Ivan Arguelles

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Displaying 1 of 1 review
Profile Image for Lenny Husen.
1,122 reviews23 followers
January 3, 2019
i was inspired to write this poem after reading this book:

RIGHT BRAIN HEADACHE

broken bone spanish poetry book cover his name naked enraged lying on
the bed of the nails of the establishment eucalyptic grooving grove of
cranium of corpses with child in Intensive Care Nightmare
raining blood snot urine bag foul fetid splashing in the Bosho pond
frog splattering on the sidewalk of her lust-filled Buena Vista Social Club
massacre inside green black vertical water of prideful detergent of spuming lava
cone sepulchre magma magna carta jack russell terrier with ears torn-off covered
with maggots in wound ripped reading of entrails divination of diamond studded
gemini sig sauer linguist of korean demented desertion of mud pie lava cake emesis
hieratic rambling molestation altar boy fellatio condom catheter miralax coated
embodiment of cacamadre coated-marshmallow H-Bombs of Manson's mockery
pelasgian pangolins of Kytherian agony of ruined charred Easy-Off oven of penology
into Lot's wife's necklace of cordillera oligarchic weaponization of Poncho & Lefty
diarrhea dead-dog mustard orb of the spider woman penicillin Nibbana of my guilt of
cigarette-studded alveolic rutilating manicomio of black of the silver of the green of DEATH
SILVIAN FISSURE OF CRANKSHAFT OF RILEY ICERINK GUAVA JAM INDICA CADAVERS OF
PUTAMADRE sinning of vocabulary of his long grey-haired tantrum of niceness ferret decency
of his pulchritudinous cloud banks of sorrow with syntax of anatolian ingle pearls right-brained
headache of december kona coffee red-headed blue-barred volcanic picasso parrotfish
of ASININE ASONANCE inside FREUD'S CIGAR of silence.

I liked it.
what was good: forced me to work hard and look up lots of vocabulary words and references, and i learned about Beat Poetry
this book won an award

what was not so good: this book is for very advanced Poetry aficionados and i cannot say i understood these poems--as i kept reading them, i could spot patterns but overall it read like a stream of consciousness with many random unpleasant images, kind of like a bad dream where you feel confused and upset but nothing makes sense so it isn't as terrible as it would be but you are glad to wake up.
photographs: went with the poems mostly more or less, but i didn't really like any of the pictures except the Elvis Gravesite one which was super cool.

why 5 stars, Lenny?
i think i would honestly give it 4 stars because i had to work so hard and won't ever forget this book, will round up because i met the author in a totally different context and only found out he is a poet by chance. He and his wife are amazing people. i want to support his struggle and he really inspires me to write poetry so hard core 5 stars for INSPIRATION.
i am the only person to review this book on Amazon and Good Reads to date and i want to encourage other Poetry buffs to read it.
Hopefully someone smarter than me will read this book and review it thoughtfully with their superior knowledge of Beat Poetry.
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