SoundMachine

by Rachel Zucker

Through heartbreaking, often comic, genre-non-conforming pieces spanning the past 10 years, Rachel Zucker trains her relentless attention on marriage, motherhood, grief, the need to speak, depression, sex, and many other topics. Part poetry, part memoir, part lyric essay—and not limited by any of these categories—SoundMachine is a book written out of the persistent feeling that the human voice is both a meaningless sound and the only way we know we exist.

Genres: Poetry

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 17, 2019

About the author

Rachel Zucker is the author of Museum of Accidents (Wave Books, 2009), which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of The Bad Wife Handbook (Wesleyan University, 2007), The Last Clear Narrative (Wesleyan University, 2004), Eating in the Underworld (Wesleyan University, 2003), and Annunciation (The Center for Book Arts, 2002), as well as the co-editor (with Arielle Greenberg) of Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama's First 100 Days and Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections (both from the University of Iowa Press). A graduate of Yale and the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Zucker has taught at several institutions, including NYU and Yale. She currently lives in NYC with her husband and three sons, and is a certified labor doula.

For more information on this author, go to:
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/63-...

Reviews

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked so much of this book and what it does!! the poems/not-poems/lyric essays explore grief and death, motherhood and the hurts of raising children, fulfilling a role in this way, being a teacher, the poetry of poems, privilege, the interrogation of the confessional, the politics of naming or identifying people in your poems, and so much more. It’s at times alienating because it is so specific to Rachel Zucker but I still enjoyed the experience of reading and thinking through her eyes. This book is so so clever.

It’s interesting to think about if we are supposed to take these poems at face value for Truth and Reality, which is also talked about in here too in such a subtly meta manner. Does the crafting of a poem make it false in some way because of the manipulation of words and perspectives?

Some are so gut-punchy and I can genuinely feel the tension and emotion in these poems. Also it specifically made me think about motherhood in different ways and the relationship between parent and child and the Meaning of these relationships.

It also triggered a lot of thoughts about my own writing and why sometimes I feel a struggle in writing poems lately, like I don’t want to be known or seen in them but to not include my Self in them feels boring or like I’m hiding something! Idk but any book that gets me thinking about craft gets my endorsement lol.

[Rebecca H.]

I wrote about this book here: https://readingindie.substack.com/p/f...

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rachel Zucker's writing on motherhood is so, so good, and I will forever treasure her for making space for motherhood poetics.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

never have i felt so understood by a book/poet/combination of words. never read a lot of confessional poetry but this was just a wonderful step into a warm pool

[Megan Alyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zucker is hands down a poet I try to emulate. This book is so provocative. I feel like she’s climbed inside my brain and says the things I want to say myself. Only she says it better. In poetic prose. Playing with language and sound . Love

[Amorak Huey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book won’t let go of me. I’ve read it at least twice this month, opening and reopening.

It gave me an entire approach to a conversation I want to have with my grad students in the fall.

There is so much going on here. Smart and provocative and and and.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am totally in the tank for Rachel Zucker. I relate very much to all of her questions about how to write about others, about being a mother and a wife, about teaching, about living your life as if from a great distance. Even though I didn't love eery poem, I would probably have given this five stars if only the final poem in the book hadn't been kind of anticlimactic and meandering--more so than even the rest of the poems in the book.

[Barbette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parts of this book were almost unbearable to me, and others were genius. Five stars. Zucker took me on an epic journey, somewhere.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zucker at her best.

[jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished it this morning.

Then I started it again.

[Fernando Fernández · Rating 2 out of 5]

Museum of Accidents was an important book of poetry. A quite important one for me, at least.

Then, during the pandemic, after discovering her podcast, of dialogues with major voices and interesting poets, I started noticing how she said "I" all the time. It became irritating. Thus, I started disliking her way of talking, that "sensitive-progressive (but not radical, nothing too dangerous) self-conscious/centered pumpkin spice latte drinking artsy woman" cadences.

("Many true things are difficult to write or offensive to others but The Book of Nothing is not intended for a general audience so I can write anything but I suspect the idea of a “general audience” might be offensive & fallacious --- says Zucker, and what's offensive is how she cares so much about being offensive when writing, or avoiding being "difficult", and so on. It's the gist of the well-meaning platitudes that preside parts of the book).

Now, I can't stop reading this book with her voice in my head and find it quite hard to take it seriously and keep going. There are some passive-agressive preposterous pieces, trying to sound ironic but, well, read for yourselves:

"What the wife has tried:
Ambien, counting sheep, apple cider vinegar, warm milk, aromatherapy, oatstraw infusion, Rescue Remedy, sex, masturbation, visualization, relaxation exercises, inhale 4 hold 4 exhale 6, reading, skullcap, valerian, motherwort, chamomile, hot tea, valium, antidepressants, music, talk radio, cutting out caffeine, exercise, yoga, meditation, books on tape, rice sock, homeopathy, fear of morning, prayer.

Every minute I think: I will give him one more minute & then I will kill him. I believe he deserves to die but making him sleep in the other room seems unwifely cruel? The truth is I might have trouble sleeping even if he were not snoring but truly it is a disgusting sound.

Things the Husband has not tried:

Losing weight, using a harder pillow, seeing a doctor, strengthening his neck muscles, getting tested for sleep apnea, changing his diet, not drinking alcohol.

Still I do not wake him."

The writer has a lot of talent so it's not merely a terrible book, some pages are more than decent, but the editors should have convinced her to wait and change things, throw a lot of stuff away.
The problem is that currently she has too much prestige for that, and that is a pity.

The thing is, a lot of us are yearning for that poetic voice that we used to love in Museum of Accidents, the one that wasn't so crudely and personally hers. Let's hope she finds the time to cast aside her slightly annoying personality and create another voice for her next book, which then will probably be much a better one.

[Juliet Garon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A RAW AND HUMAN EXPERIENCE, CLOUDED ONLY BY ITS LACK OF GENERAL APPEAL

Sound Machine, written by NYU poetry teacher, mother of three, editor, and author Rachel Zucker, is a beautifully written window into her life. The reader travels along with her, from dreams to bedrooms to English classes, learning the intricacies of her daily struggles. Her mastery of similes, metaphors, and the perfect balance of poetry and prose (writing at times in short phrases and at others in long and rambling paragraphs), demonstrate her true command of the English language.
While Sound Machine will certainly bring some tears and some laughs, it also accomplishes what all good books must: bringing discomfort. Throughout Zucker's descriptions of the writing process, she teaches us that the traditional stuffy middle-aged woman poems have no place on the modern bookshelf. She acknowledges her privilege, avoiding the common mistake of appearing as a whiny white woman who takes issue in everything. Instead, she shines through her writing as no more and no less than human. Through her ups and her downs, Zucker writes her emotional processes in stark contrast to her physical actions, painting scenes of ordinary life with which we can all relate.
While many of her poems are accessible to the general public, a subset of them feel geared towards specific communities: poetry lovers, new mothers, etc. She strives to make the reader feel less alone, but sometimes discusses highly specific experiences that add minimal value to her work for too long.
While this book was in no way perfect, it was not intended to be so. Instead, it provides a beautiful image of humanity, empathy, sadness, confusion, longing, jealousy, and guilt.

⅘ stars

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poems/prose pieces in SoundMachine are largely concerned with writing and parenting, and as a result I think I liked this book a bit less than I liked the other book of Zucker's that I've read (The Pedestrians). But there's still a lot of interesting stuff in SoundMachine, even if I find it less personally relatable. Writing and parenting, as Zucker talks about them, share a concern with/anxiety about attention: paying attention or not, what things we pay attention to or don't, how we pay attention or don't, speaking vs. listening, communicating or failing to communicate. I like how other books find their way into this book: Zucker talks about reading Laura Ingalls Wilder aloud to her kids, and about reading Tommy Pico to herself; she talks about To Kill a Mockingbird and the work of other poets. And there are pleasing phrases throughout: "The cars on Amsterdam Avenue are long waves of sound" (3). "What I like is the long, underwater glide as I push off from the wall" (34), "I watch the ride go on & on knowing it will stop" (48). "There's a now to write into, a continuous present that the act of writing stretches across a canvas so to speak" (252). I mostly like the longer pieces best: the first piece, "Song of the Dark Room", about a child who can't sleep, is one of my favorites, as is the last piece, "Residency." I find the diaristic nature of these and pieces like "Seven Beds Six Cities Eight Weeks" satisfying; I like how they incorporate so many everyday moments alongside the larger themes.

[Siarra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was published in 2019, the middle of the Trump presidency. The narration is reflective and it explores the ideas of a losing/retaining sense of self while bearing witness to the suffering of others or even having basic relationships with others. It explores the inner conflict that arises when one is experiencing one’s own suffering while internalizing messages that invalidate that suffering. It explores happiness through depression and quality of life. It is relatable and discussable. It is not preachy and poses no solution, but leaves room for much thought.

I am plagued with the desire to read it again immediately.

[Dagne Forrest · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved so much about this book, but ultimately for me it's challenging nature became too much and the charm wore off about halfway into it. Some sparkling, intense moments (as well as a few relatable ones) that made it worth reading, but then it became less rewarding work to occupy Zucker's brain so fully. I can see what a truly genre-bending book this is, and tip my hat, but it's not one I feel I'll be tempted to reread. The best poetry books are ones I feel compelled to revisit again and again.

[Delia Rainey · Rating 4 out of 5]

wow i feel like i was just inside of someone else's (rachel's) anxiety-body for a good several days straight as i read this, which was altogether uncomfortable and a surreal feat. lots of great questions in here about poems, writing, and wanting to write A LOT abt our lives ~ being a bad person in the poem vs. being a good person in real life. a soundmachine in the room drowns out the other noises of the other rooms, a metaphor for the writing itself. "writing as a way of paying attention."

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were moments throughout that hummed but I found many of the poems framed as too self indulgent. For all the rich writing on motherhood and relationships between mother and son, there was name dropping and non-name dropping *wink wink* that could be defined as a personal style, but was just read as off.

[Madi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the way Zucker plays with form here but the novelty wore off for me after the first 100 pages. The rest felt like the ramblings of an upper class white woman. I did enjoy the nuanced perspective of motherhood, but as a whole was mostly annoyed by the end of this. That being said, it was intriguing and I will try another work by Zucker.

[Elizabeth OH · Rating 3 out of 5]

In her poem Confessional, is this passage:

"After my lecture on the legacy of confessional poetry my fifteen-year-old son said, So your lecture’s about how we should feel sad for unhappy white women which you are?"

which is the sharpest read and the singular thing that stayed with me until the end.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wry, honest, observant, wonderful. Everything she writes I’ve thought it, felt it, experienced it. She’s brave enough to say it. Zucker’s best take yet on writing life, being a mother, being a wife, and trying to make sense of it all.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t often read books like this, but a mom friend recommended it. There were definitely some mom feelings that resonated strongly, but I struggled to connect to/make sense of a lot of it, which is more me being a lazy reader lately than any critique of the author.

[Francescajemm · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s not that I disagree altogether w the 2- and 3-star reviews. It’s that Rachel Zucker put a book together about what it means to be a mom and to lose your mind most of the time. I respect that he’ll out of that!

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read: September 18, 2019, Wednesday

[Marianne Mersereau · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book because of its many references to poetry and writing poetry and the spare prose on the page, but it was difficult to understand at times.

[Payman A · Rating 5 out of 5]

OOOOOHHH MY GOOOOOD

[Isabel Pask · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Rachel Zucker’s confessional proems and self described Book of Nothing are at times uncomfortable, though of course she knows this. At times, I felt this was more for her than us. An interesting perspective on motherhood and art.

[Antoinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first and last poems were standouts to me, and I loved their connections to the poems in between. What an excellent book that stretched my conception of what poetry can be and what poetry looks like. I loved this.

I read this book for the Jewish Women's Archives book club.