Sho

by Douglas Kearney

2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR POETRY


Eschewing series and performative typography, Douglas Kearney’s Sho aims to hit crooked licks with straight-seeming sticks. Navigating the complex penetrability of language, these poems are sonic in their espousal of Black vernacular traditions, while examining histories, pop culture, myth, and folklore. Both dazzling and devastating, Sho is a genius work of literary precision, wordplay, farce, and critical irony. In his “stove-like imagination,” Kearney has concocted poems that destabilize the spectacle, leaving looky-loos with an important uncertainty about the intersection between violence and entertainment.

Genres: Poetry

95 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 6, 2021

About the author

Douglas Kearney is an American poet and librettist. Kearney grew up in Altadena, California.

Kearney attended Howard University as an undergraduate. He also graduated from California Institute of the Arts, with an MFA. His work has appeared in Callaloo, Nocturnes, Jubilat, Gulf Coast.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

In past collections, Douglas Kearney has explored the frontiers of performative typography, where poetry is in a sense actually performed on the page. Sho is a bit of a departure in that it is a more straightforward work with verses that are, for me, more accessible. This works well because many of the poems in this collection are outstanding and the cleaner lines allow the word play and syntax and rhythm to shine.

[Oscreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems shine. Brilliant collection from Kearney.

[Greg Bem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not my favorite collection by Kearney, but one that is full of surprises and challenges. It's hard to describe the particular subjects in a quick phrase or generalization, which is perhaps the point. Ultimately this is a loosely-presented collection of many poems, including those that follow the "sho" form, and carry over the vispo, performance poetics, and projective verse approaches seen in previous collections. Quintessential and imperfect, it's a nice dive into significant, flighty topics.

[S P · Rating 3 out of 5]

'To have been gun
at duel. To serve one

simply. To cry
out, then only

be judged by spans
of silence.'

(from 'The Showdown', p59)

[Nadine Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was, alas, not for me, though I loved some the rhythms and intonations, the flow of these poems. I am not great with poetry that is abstract and abstruse, where deciphering meaning is next to impossible. Kearney is obviously a poet of great skill and I respect him. But this just wasn't my jam. I had no idea what most of the poems meant, even obliquely and, therefore, I could not deduce enough meaning to be moved by this collection.

[Diana Arterian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book is like stepping into a torrent. Kearney's poems wash over and around you with remarkable power. His desire to explore the mess and music of language more exact than ever.

[Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of challenging play with language here- there's plenty rhythm to grasp, but a lot of stunted, abstract passages too. Two of my favorite pieces occur early in the volume, "Buck" and "Everyday (I Gets)." I love the former in particular; it applies something of a queer affect (“begging for the something strong in your dom palm”) to its handling of police brutality as a repeated event (“You’ve ever done this before –”) that keeps afloat the racial antagonisms staged between the state and its Black subjects. I believe the volume might be productively read in concert with Calvin Warren's Ontological Terror-the failure of grammar instantiated across the text seems to put in motion Warren's claims about Blackness as a metaphysical nothingness. Here, the precarity of Black subject/objecthood seems situated in Kearney's play with grammar, which is something like poetry's metaphysical terrain.

[Dree · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this collection Kearney is largely looking at the African-American experience from the inside. Some may not be specific to African-Americans--the poems reflect American experience--but it all fits together.

Most of these I did not really get. References to movies and TV, music, the usual of poets referencing other poets. He uses a lot of word play, so understanding can be complicated. You have to get the references to know what he is talking about, let alone how it fits.

My favorite is "Eulogy for a Pair of Kicks", which is funny and clever, and I understood. I suspect most of these poems are this clever if you catch his references. Here we have wordplay on different types of shoes, different parts of shoes, uses of shoes, advertising of different brands. "It's gotta be the—!"

[Ty Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the "I didn't get it" reviews chase you away. This isn't the kind of collection you breeze through in an evening, easily grasping each line on a quick skim. It's the kind of work you chew on--the type with robust flavor waiting for folks willing to savor their meal.

Kearney is a poet's poet. He writes, and writers around the world are better for it. His poems expand the notion of what a poem is allowed to be. Simply put, this book wasn't a National Book Award finalist for nothing. This collection is a masterwork, and Kearney is nothing short of a master of his craft.

[Alex Watson]

Shakespeare meets Kendrick Lamar meets Gertrude Stein? I felt like this book was creating a new grammar/syntax and teaching me how to read differently. Reading out loud definitely helped. There were some poems where I felt locked in and like I understood what they were saying despite being disoriented, and others where I wondered if the wordplay itself was the point. I’m not rating poetry books anymore unless I have really strong reactions to them because I feel like most of the time my assessment has more to do with me as a reader than the poetry itself.

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like to hear Kearney read/perform these pieces. I never quite managed to vocalize the rhythms and images, though I kept feeling like there was a voice there that didn't quite jump from the page. The thematic emphasis on black performance/minstrelsy in the age of George Floyd makes sense. My problem with the book may reflect the limits of my inner ear rather than something intrinsic in the work, but in the end it felt closer to the concrete poets than Langston Hughes.

[Tenno · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kearney writes his poetry with attention to the way it will sound. Read it out loud. He is not adverse to deleting words or butchering the grammar if in doing so we will hear his poems like a song. My personal favorite poem in this collection was "Borax". I felt like the poem dismantled a black and white mentality. "Who's low-down and dirty in their clean version? / They mean to keep it scrubbed isn't we? / They keep our hands stained as their shine." It lingers with me like an old song.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kearney’s language is very different from the way I write, which I enjoyed!

It’s heavy on enjambment, tight phrases full of music, and colloquialisms from communities I’m not from. It was a good reminder that internal rhymes and stacked assonance come out to the ear through the page.

It’s a book that was time well spent and I’m glad it’s in the world, but I think other people will get more from it than I did.

Page 54’s first line was the lowlight for me.

[Taylor Franson-Thiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a surprising and challenging collection that pushes the reader toward labor. Kearney puts pressure on language to live up to what it can’t. Deeply resonant and a brilliant read for our day and age, or any day and age.

[kathryn donovan]

I struggle in general with poetry and my experience is vastly different from the author's. Kearney's work was lost on me so I'm not giving it a rating.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems demand to be read aloud.

4.5/5

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not get into the poetry - perhaps i would enjoye this poetry more in performance

[a l n · Rating 4 out of 5]

incomparable amounts of sonic dexterity and torsive, almost tongue-twistery rhythms, springy and punchy all at once

[Greg Tippmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

First collection of poetry I have ever read as an adult. I didn't understand some of it, but what I did understand was amazing - challenging, thought-provoking, and different

[juch · Rating 4 out of 5]

as always giving esp experimental books of poetry 4 stars bc going any lower makes me feel dumb! took me a while to get through. i noticed very articulated forms, by which i mean like... very formy forms. attn to sound, but also sparsity - "done singing just now. even so, i'm song, used to" from "dogged." overall vibe - spooky. thought some poems were really smart and innovative

"well" - so good "by we mean what's at the bottom of what i want to be" and the well-like form that narrows into us us us
"livestock" - i liked that it was sentencey without making obv sense, also curious about form https://labloga.blogspot.com/2015/08/...
"dogged"
"the drifters after school" - the jif etc brand names with trademark symbols were so weird and silly
"manesology" - coolly sardonic, haunting

[Ethan · Rating 1 out of 5]

There were only two poems that I both comprehended and enjoyed, the rest felt like word vomit in an ancient language.

[Katelin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kearney’s poetry is unlike anything I’ve ever read, and I enjoyed it for that. There was a rhythm and style that felt fun and serious at the same time, with nods to cultural references woven in.