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Vice: New and Selected Poems
Winner of the 1999 National Book Award for Poetry. Collected here are poems from Ai's previous five books― Cruelty, Killing Floor, Sin, Fate , and Greed ―along with seventeen new poems. Employing her trademark ferocity, these new dramatic monologues continue to mine this award-winning poet's "often brilliant" ( Chicago Tribune ) vision.
272 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1999
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About the author
Ai
5,180 books92 followersAi Ogawa (born Florence Anthony) was an American poet who who described herself as 1/2 Japanese, 1/8 Choctaw-Chickasaw, 1/4 Black, 1/16 Irish and as well as Southern Cheyenne and Comanche. She is known for her mastery of the dramatic monologue as a poetic form, as well as for taking on dark, controversial topics in her work. While her poems often contain sex, violence, and other subjects for which she received criticism, she stated during a 1978 interview that she did not view her use of them as gratuitous. About the poems in her first collection, Cruelty, she said: "I wanted people to see how they treated each other and themselves." In 1999 she won the National Book Award for Poetry for Vice: New and Selected Poems.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
June 8, 2015
Ai's collection is startling, difficult, and important. Selected from the five books preceding this collection - Cruelty, Killing Floor, Sin, Fate, and Greed - these poems tackle dangerous parts of the human spirit in ways that leave readers gasping for air. Her metaphors and similes are often spiritual, ranging from Lazarus to Eve to Saturn and Lucifer. They ask us to to challenge what we believe, as in, "how free is a woman? - / born with Eve's sin between her legs" (67) and show how preoccupations about God and religion course through human minds.
Ai uses sound to propel her poems, leaning more into "spoken word" rhythms and inertias as the years progress. For me, her use of sound is most successful in her earlier poems where she focuses more on image and lets rhythm move us more into sight. Beautiful dark lines like, "Night, that old woman, jabs the sun / with a pitchfork, / and dyes the cheesecloth sky blue-violet" (29) and "We strip away the tattered fabric / of the universe / to the juicy, dark meat, / the nothing beyond time. / We tear ourselves down atom by atom, / till electron and positron, / we become our own transcendent annihilation" (79) sing the images to us. As sound begins to take over in Greed and the new poems, the images feel weighted down and a bit more controlled by the sound. These poems also move into more current social and political allusions to figures such as Lee Harvey Oswald, Malcolm X, and James Dean. While these are strong poems dealing with difficult subject matter, they almost lose that dark and deep edge that I loved so much about the earlier pieces.
No matter how you nitpick, however, Ai's poems hit you like a truck and demand that you stand up again, keep turning the page. Often adopting new personas, Ai embodies the "vices" she describes in new ways in each poem. She does not shy away from the challenge of depicting the harsh realities of sin and cruelty, but rather embraces these personas with eerie accuracy. Joy Harjo calls this collection "frightening but necessary" and while sometimes the poems are hard to stomach, this is a book that forces us to wrestle with the demons in the world and the ones in the mirror.
Ai uses sound to propel her poems, leaning more into "spoken word" rhythms and inertias as the years progress. For me, her use of sound is most successful in her earlier poems where she focuses more on image and lets rhythm move us more into sight. Beautiful dark lines like, "Night, that old woman, jabs the sun / with a pitchfork, / and dyes the cheesecloth sky blue-violet" (29) and "We strip away the tattered fabric / of the universe / to the juicy, dark meat, / the nothing beyond time. / We tear ourselves down atom by atom, / till electron and positron, / we become our own transcendent annihilation" (79) sing the images to us. As sound begins to take over in Greed and the new poems, the images feel weighted down and a bit more controlled by the sound. These poems also move into more current social and political allusions to figures such as Lee Harvey Oswald, Malcolm X, and James Dean. While these are strong poems dealing with difficult subject matter, they almost lose that dark and deep edge that I loved so much about the earlier pieces.
No matter how you nitpick, however, Ai's poems hit you like a truck and demand that you stand up again, keep turning the page. Often adopting new personas, Ai embodies the "vices" she describes in new ways in each poem. She does not shy away from the challenge of depicting the harsh realities of sin and cruelty, but rather embraces these personas with eerie accuracy. Joy Harjo calls this collection "frightening but necessary" and while sometimes the poems are hard to stomach, this is a book that forces us to wrestle with the demons in the world and the ones in the mirror.
April 6, 2022
My advisor recommended this book to me years ago as preparation material for my poetry thesis — and somehow, I just got around to cracking it open. I think I was subconsciously avoiding it because I knew the subject matter was disturbing.
Ai’s work makes for brilliant study of language and form, but leaves the mind unsettled and raw. It’s not uncommon for me to take my time with a good book of poetry, but this one took me much longer than usual because I could only ingest a couple pieces at a time.
I will not be reading this again — but the work is important and does not exist to decorate the world, but to question it and force us to sit uncomfortably with cold truths.
I’m not going to give a recommendation either way for this book. Ai was a tremendously skilled writer and everyone could learn a great deal from her work, but it is not a recreational read, that’s for sure.
(Also worth noting: this book doesn’t fit anywhere in my rating system. I wouldn’t really say I “enjoyed” it, but I’m glad I read it. So based on that and writing quality, I came up with 4/5).
Ai’s work makes for brilliant study of language and form, but leaves the mind unsettled and raw. It’s not uncommon for me to take my time with a good book of poetry, but this one took me much longer than usual because I could only ingest a couple pieces at a time.
I will not be reading this again — but the work is important and does not exist to decorate the world, but to question it and force us to sit uncomfortably with cold truths.
I’m not going to give a recommendation either way for this book. Ai was a tremendously skilled writer and everyone could learn a great deal from her work, but it is not a recreational read, that’s for sure.
(Also worth noting: this book doesn’t fit anywhere in my rating system. I wouldn’t really say I “enjoyed” it, but I’m glad I read it. So based on that and writing quality, I came up with 4/5).
December 14, 2017
I love the variety of poems in this book. You can really see the evolution in Ai's work with this book, especially how she transitions from narrating the atrocities in small, rural towns in the eyes of the lower class to narrating pop culture stars. It's interesting to see how she approaches both worlds with the same sharpness of language and fearlessness in exposing violence and abuse.
Definitely not a poem to read for relaxation, but a great poem to read if you want to feel something in your heart.
Definitely not a poem to read for relaxation, but a great poem to read if you want to feel something in your heart.
July 20, 2008
i read this simultaneously with ai's dread and found them to be of the same quality of attention to words. but in subject matter this was of more nihilistic meanderings. i was frightened whilst reading most of these poems, but grateful to know the story she weaves with such brief passage.
November 28, 2009
So after doing a research paper on Ai. I found her poetry to be extremely dark and meaningful. Some of her stuff was filled with vulgar but the depth and emotion she portrayed through all her poetry was full of meaning. It was an astounding collection of poems.
March 7, 2013
I have a hard time reading more than a couple of poems at a time.......but I always come back.....lots to think about and very dense. Her voice is powerful and she will not let up on getting you to see her truth. Love her work but can only take it in pieces. I don't know any other poet like her..
March 10, 2008
I've read this book at least once a week for the past 8 years. In one word, Ai is: fierce.
June 27, 2008
violent, strange, simple
April 1, 2009
Powerful book of narrative poetry. A must read for any lover of poetry. This book influence me to write long narrative storytelling poetry.
December 23, 2010
Excellent poetry. I had the opportunity to go to a poetry reading by Ai and it was the single best reading I have been to.
April 5, 2025
I can't believe Ai's work and wish more people read her. The Weegee photo on the cover is perfect.
September 19, 2019
Ai is good at what she does, but after a few dozen poems the shock value simply becomes boring. Within the first fifteen pages there are poems about dysfunctional relationships, sex, abortion, poverty, child abuse, animal sacrifice, suicide, and murder. It doesn't get much better from there. There are poems about priests molesting children, Vietnam veterans with PTSD, and a mother who grooms her daughter to have an incestuous relationship with her dad. Ai also has a weird obsession with U.S. politics (JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby; Nixon and Watergate; McCarthyism; J. Edgar Hoover) and often writes manic monologues from their perspective, although they're "100 per cent fiction and are merely characters created by the poet. Some of them project the names of 'real' public figures onto made-up characters in made-up circumstances." Uh-huh.
At first I admired Ai's style. I enjoyed how carefully she chooses words and how her poems create an impact in a relatively small space. Her later poems become more sprawling and reliant on internal rhyme, with a very spoken word, almost rap-like feeling:
All of her new poems are awful. They don't seem to be as well-edited as her previous poems. It's like Ai was thinking "hmmm...I need to write something shocking, political, and full of rhymes!" and became a bad impersonation of her former self:
Ai is a reasonably talented poet, but relies too much on controversial subject matter. She intentionally chooses the worst parts of humanity to shine a spotlight on. In my opinion, this is the only reason why she's acclaimed. Her style (especially in later years) is rarely anything special.
Poems that I liked:
"The Tenant Farmer," "Talking to His Reflection in a Shallow Pond," "I Can't Get Started," "Conversation."
=4/76 (5.3%) poems that I liked.
At first I admired Ai's style. I enjoyed how carefully she chooses words and how her poems create an impact in a relatively small space. Her later poems become more sprawling and reliant on internal rhyme, with a very spoken word, almost rap-like feeling:
Sometimes my whole body aches
and I lie down on the floor,
just staring at the ceiling,
until I am feeling in control again,
my old confidence surging back
through me like electricity
and I get up, Frankenstein, revived
by the weakness of others
and as unstoppable as a handful of pills
that might kill you on a night like this,
like the night when Marilyn kissed it all goodbye.
(from "Hoover, Edgar J." p. 141)
All of her new poems are awful. They don't seem to be as well-edited as her previous poems. It's like Ai was thinking "hmmm...I need to write something shocking, political, and full of rhymes!" and became a bad impersonation of her former self:
and how the free love movement of the sixties
lead to these public and humiliating revelations
of my supposed liaison with a young woman
I swear I do not know in the biblical sense,
although she presented herself to me
as if on a plate,
surrounded by French fries?
I saw in her eyes as she lay there
not submission to my will
but two hamburger patties, sizzling on a grill.
They said, "Eat your fill,"
and God I wanted to, God I willed myself
to refuse that generous offering
(from "Blood in the Water" p. 224)
Ai is a reasonably talented poet, but relies too much on controversial subject matter. She intentionally chooses the worst parts of humanity to shine a spotlight on. In my opinion, this is the only reason why she's acclaimed. Her style (especially in later years) is rarely anything special.
Poems that I liked:
"The Tenant Farmer," "Talking to His Reflection in a Shallow Pond," "I Can't Get Started," "Conversation."
=4/76 (5.3%) poems that I liked.
October 15, 2023
I really believe that writers are writers because they HAVE to. Ai is an example of my hypothesis. I don't know what her life story is, but I felt like she was using a first person narrative to hide her true feelings/thoughts/past by "writing" about others. There was a lot of pain in the lines. I did not understand most of her work (i didn't even know that she was using a first person narrative until the 2nd to last chapter and then everything felt less confusing) but there were a few moments when I felt my throat choke. She called herself an actor but I think she needed a place to pour her secrets safely. Because you cannot paint a specific shade of gray that exists in the shadows of a pitch black room unless you've been there long enough to let your eyes readjust to the darkness and desperately search for light. She was not "acting" in some of her poems and it was hard to read.
August 27, 2017
I have a hard time handling some of the more graphic detail and horror, but it pays off, because Ai has some important things to say by addressing these issues.
May 14, 2019
It was not my type of poetry, though there were some good works that I enjoyed reading due to stylistic features, though I could not relate to a good portion of the book.
Read
June 26, 2021Two standouts for me:
"Capture"
"Passing Through"
"Capture"
"Passing Through"
Want to read
June 1, 2025Cutting is for The Detective
By Ai
Another cutting is for Two Brothers: A Fiction
By Ai
By Ai
Another cutting is for Two Brothers: A Fiction
By Ai
December 31, 2011
The early poems here-the ones in Cruelty ( 1973) and Killing Floor (1979)-are intricate and forceful. The best ones are learned, ambitious, drawing on such diverse traditions as Pound, the Oral Tradition, Browning’s Monologues and Post Second Wave Feminism. Obsessed with trauma and agonizingly internal, they can raise powerful questions about race, gender, identity and the human capacity to digest an enormous amount of grief. Even when the message or structure of the poems don’t necessarily jibe, they are consciously crafted enough to always be the readers time.
She loses me In the later poems, where she stops telling human personal stories and starts to ruminate on pop culture events and figures. Ai's early work interpolated the motif of the early Cantos- that poetry didn’t have the language to encapsulate the grief and horror of modern life-more effectively than Pound ever did, but they worked when she wrote close to the vest of real life, what she knew, what she could see, what she could invent. When she started writing about OJ, Monica Lewinsky, Koresh, and the Okalahoma city bombing, the animating aesthetics of her work fall flat. Still, the book is worth it: there is much here that needs to be read if you want to understand the history of poetry, chew on some literary theorizing, or just read some good poems. If you can get a good copy of Cruelty on Amazon, however, I would go with that first.
She loses me In the later poems, where she stops telling human personal stories and starts to ruminate on pop culture events and figures. Ai's early work interpolated the motif of the early Cantos- that poetry didn’t have the language to encapsulate the grief and horror of modern life-more effectively than Pound ever did, but they worked when she wrote close to the vest of real life, what she knew, what she could see, what she could invent. When she started writing about OJ, Monica Lewinsky, Koresh, and the Okalahoma city bombing, the animating aesthetics of her work fall flat. Still, the book is worth it: there is much here that needs to be read if you want to understand the history of poetry, chew on some literary theorizing, or just read some good poems. If you can get a good copy of Cruelty on Amazon, however, I would go with that first.
December 4, 2025
Memory is a highway,
where a car is speeding into the sunset.
The man inside that car has a gun.
He says he'll shoot himself
and be done with it, be dead,
but in the end, he doesn't do it.
If he had, the path to the truth
would have led straight from the gate
outside his ex-wife's house,
not end run around it,
leaving a trail of blood
the prosecution says is proof
that he used his power, his juice
to seduce death
by handing her two sacrifices,
but she promised what she would never deliver.
-- "Rapture (A Fiction)"
Good timing on my part, I guess, considering OJ Simpson died recently.
where a car is speeding into the sunset.
The man inside that car has a gun.
He says he'll shoot himself
and be done with it, be dead,
but in the end, he doesn't do it.
If he had, the path to the truth
would have led straight from the gate
outside his ex-wife's house,
not end run around it,
leaving a trail of blood
the prosecution says is proof
that he used his power, his juice
to seduce death
by handing her two sacrifices,
but she promised what she would never deliver.
-- "Rapture (A Fiction)"
Good timing on my part, I guess, considering OJ Simpson died recently.
February 26, 2010
Some poetry is lovely, evocative and lyrical, perfect for reading aloud and drowning yourself in the taste of the words and the beauty of the imagery. Other poems are more visceral, meant to convey heavy social or political messages. Ai's poetry falls like a brick into that second category. It is a brutal glimpse of the dark side, of criminals, serial killers, victims, and forgotten people languishing in alleyways. It's the poetic equivalent of being punched in the gut. Certainly not for everyone, but well-conceived regardless.
September 10, 2008
At first I loved Ai and loved this book. Then I was somewhat luke warm towards it. Then I loved it again. She chooses emotionally complex and challenging subject matter. Her writing style is not super mind blowing, but I do appreciate it the more I read it. The stories that she tells are powerful, bold, stunning.
July 2, 2012
Powerful, visceral, beautifully crafted and moving, but such an unremitting catalog of pain that, about midway through, all that pain collected in me. I just couldn't continue for a time. After a weeks-long hiatus, I finally took it up again to sample the new poems at the end. Well-deserving of its National Book Award, but definitely not for everyone.
October 27, 2013
Angry, disturbing and beautiful. What a poet this woman was!
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...
April 7, 2008
My Favorite contemporary poet! She's brutally honest.
April 18, 2008
I much prefer her earlier work. Though still good and important, her later poems could have used some trimming, I feel.
June 15, 2008
Powerful poems; found this at Powell's in Portland, opened the page and it was like getting punched in the stomach...in a good way.
September 12, 2008
I loved these poems, especially the early ones. They are so powerful and a short poem tells a novel's worth of stories. Her imagery moved me intensely-- raw, badass and gritty--just how i like it :)
February 15, 2009
A solid overview of the important works from this poet.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews