Horror Vacui : Poems and Other Writings

by Shy Watson

I sat in the park eating veggie lo mein, eyes watery with the rotten pleasure of being alive. It had only been minutes since I had complimented the man in the doorway at Ho Wah, telling him that the snake around his neck, which had startled me at first, was beautiful. The trees in the park looked like broccoli, and several people appeared to be in love. A couple played cards in the grass. On the walk home, I noticed a woman whose eyebrows looked tired from trying to say something. // “Shy’s poems are abruptly smart, a little violent, devious and ongoing, legendary, mythic, not prosey though a little like the voice of god if god decided to speak more collectively for a while. Shy’s poems to me are so so worth it. And they are crafty—also like god.”—EILEEN MYLES, author of Chelsea Girls

Genres: Poetry, Journal, Fiction

162 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 3, 2021

Reviews

[Scott Cumming · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection that manages to mimic the way the mind processes memory of events and does so in a fun way. You feel like you are experiencing the memories as they hit the page through the longer poems. The short poems lend playfulness to the collection as do the dreams towards the end.

The quarantine diary that finishes the book is honest and filled with the ennui and lethargy we continue to experience over a year into this thing.

[Jordan N · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest, extraordinary collection of poems. Playful and surprising lines track a life of inadequacy paired with not very alarming crises which always appear unavoidable. Yet optimism is always one line away. In a bizarre way the poems simply exist like the lives we lead from day to day, the poems live line by line, as wide open windows with a view of the ordinary. Access to authors is what readers often beg for and in a way the author authorizes the reader to look at her life while reflecting the bogus reality all around us. The section of quarantine diaries is a perfect glimpse into the desire to create multiple versions of ourselves while our access to others is limited. A badass book.

[Franco Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Shy Watson's work because I saw people talking about it on twitter. I'm grateful I've found so many writers that way. It feels more magical to have a book recommended to me by strangers on the internet because that's the new "word of mouth" I guess. And when this book got to my house I read it in one sitting. And then I read it a second time the next day. It's rare for me to find this combination, this sweet spot for what I'm looking for in poetry. A solid balance between the everyday and the otherworldly. The moving with grace between these two spaces. These poems do that and because I see the everyday details of the speaker's life, I can move along into the ghostly, witchy stuff too.

The final section of this book contains "quarantine diaries." And they felt so dreamlike, so offbeat and distantly psychedelic. Which is exactly what my quarantine experience was like. And I'm glad to finally encounter this in a book. It made me feel human, feel connected to the book I was reading for the first time in a year.

[Tex Gresham · Rating 5 out of 5]

a book that contains the essence of what it's like to live in 2019-2021 (and maybe beyond). a transition from freeform poetic glimpses of life to the incongruity of dreamscapes to the absurdly disconnected landscape of a quarantined existence. it's a poet's translation of this traumatic and weird-as-fuck time. shy watson's writing is at times wonderfully abstract and at others poignantly direct -- and sometimes relatably mundane. this is another killer book from house of vlad and my first book of shy's. and because of it, i am now a devoted reader.

(and yes, relatably is a word)

[Andrew Byrds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Shy is like slowly unspooling barbed wire from your brain so you can engage in conversation, or, like flexing your guts anticipating rabbit punches of nonchalant heartache as tiny fists land against your flesh, or, like walking through a dead minefield and by your shitty luck stepping on the only livewire that reminds you of who you once were and time is such a fucky thing as you're blown into a gorestain of self-reflection.

[Blake Middleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

“at work i laughed so hard
i cried imagining
a dollar store
with an entire glass case
of cowboy hats
illuminated by
dramatic lighting”

really enjoyed these poems and the quarantine diaries section at the end. would recommend to fans of frank o’ hara, jean rhys.. was going to write more but my chihuahua’s stomach is making weird noises and i think i need to take it outside

[Codycvlp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this, i could picture all the poems and dreams shy writes, on top of that, the covid diaries were cool to read and likely my favorite part of the book, it’s interesting, covid was only 5 years ago but feels way longer, i always am fascinated with what people did during that time.

[Tyler Engström · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book makes sense in a way so few things do

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems that paint a picture of the writer in revealing glimpses.

[Sydney E · Rating 5 out of 5]

really enjoyed this!! pieces of a life that i can see glimpses of in my own, reflected. the quarantine diaries reminded me of my own quarantine diaries so that was a trip

[Melissa Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

So grateful to Treefort / Storyfort for bringing the works of Shy Watson into my life.

[Travis Eskins]

Every poem should end with “etc.” I’m stealing that. Sorry Shy. It was nice meeting you.

[Greg Zorko · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Shy Watson. There's a great continuity of style in this collection, and a very distinct poetic voice. Side note, I don't know why but I enjoy it when poets name drop people in poems without any explanation of who they are. It seems to make things more intimate for the reader. I don't find myself seeking out writing about the Covid pandemic, so I was surprised how much I enjoyed the diary section of the book. I think it's because the pandemic itself seems to be quite far in the background of most of the entries, but it colors things in subtle ways that I found interesting.

Great book!

[Gublichandji Buginath · Rating 4 out of 5]

quarantine, lockdown, curfews all around me, so this book felt like good company :)

[Alex Wexelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shy Watson’s poetry is about longing—or, is all poetry about longing? In “sour,” she writes, “i wanted / in the way / that want follows / bedraggled / a half moon / of bites.” She wants to be a famous painter, she wants to punch a Picasso so “there would be some kind / of climax,” she wants to move to L.A., and she just wants to be loved.

“[E]very time we want / something / we have to sacrifice / varying amounts / of ourselves,” Shy writes in a poem titled, “a bit buoyant.” All of these quotes come from the collection HORROR VACUI: Poems and Other Writings, released by House of Vlad Press in January. As the title suggests, the book collects Shy’s various writing, which is split into three sections: 1. HORROR VACUI, poems; 2. WAKING DREAMS, lyrical writing; and, 3. QUARANTINE DIARIES, a reprint of the NYC Self-Isolation Diaries series on Newest York.

Shy’s poetry isn’t so much confessional as it is self-lacerating. After reading it over and over I want to overshare. I want to tell you I fell asleep watching Mad Max last night and rain is pattering on my window and I am listening to a New Order tape and trying to do Shy justice. I smell faintly like B.O. and have been suckling the same bodega coffee since 2 PM. This is my newsletter so I can say all this dumb shit. Or, as Shy wrote, “sloppier every day / in control & not again.” Man, that’s me to a T.

Maybe that’s what Shy’s writing does—makes you raw like the picked flesh around the edges of a fingernail you can’t help but rub over and over when you’re anxious. In a five-star Goodreads review, the author Blake Middleton writes, “would recommend to fans of frank o’ hara, jean rhys.. was going to write more but my chihuahua’s stomach is making weird noises and i think i need to take it outside.” Incredible. What an unnecessary detail.

When I finished the book, I felt like I had witnessed Shy’s crucifixion and resurrection. The poetry and dream sections are unforgiving while the final section, call it a coda, is redemptive. It’s the levity you feel after you sick into the toilet bowl and exorcise yourself of what ails you.

[Ross Felton · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite part was the final 3rd of the book which consisted of the dreamscapes and quarantine diaries.