Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes: Poems

by Nicky Beer

What is illusion--a deception, or a revelation? What is a poem--the truth, or "a diverting flash, / a mirror showing everything / but itself"? Nicky Beer's latest collection of poems is a labyrinthine academy specializing in the study of subterfuge; Marlene Dietrich, Dolly Parton, and Batman are its instructors. With an energetic eye, she thumbs through our collective history books--and her personal one, too--in an effort to chart the line between playful forms of duplicity and those that are far more insidious. Through delicious japery, poems that can be read multiple ways, and allusions ranging from Puccini's operas to Law & Order, Beer troubles the notion of truth. Often, we settle for whatever brand of honesty is convenient for us, or whatever is least likely to spark confrontation--but this, Beer knows, is how we invite others to weigh in on what kind of person we are. This is how we trick ourselves into believing they're right. "Listen / to how quiet it is when I lose the self-doubt played / for so long I mistook it for music."Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes asks us to look through the which image is the real one? This one--or this one, just here? With wisdom, humility, and a forthright tenderness, Nicky Beer suggests that we consider both--together, they might contribute to something like truth.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Bisexual, Queer Lit

93 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 8, 2022

Reviews

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are formally and thematically interesting and accomplished poems, but they didn't move me emotionally which is pretty much all I want from poetry.

I did really like the imagery in the poem "Small Claims Court":
"I took the twenty-seven bones from my left hand / and made a xylophone on which to play you love songs. I dragged a wheelbarrow / of sugar backwards over the parking lot / so the ants could spell out your name."

[Sherwestonstec · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book of contemporary poetry. Very visual. I especially enjoyed the stereoscopic man series. I highly recommend this book!

[Ricky Schneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautifully rendered collection of poetry is as charming as it is moving. Nicky Beer uses pop culture references to investigate her own authenticity. Are we as genuine as we would like to think? Is anything? Maybe we are more often facsimiles of what we know and pale imitations of what we would like to be. Beer illustrates how each draft and revision we forge out of ourselves is a beautifully flawed expression of our affected humanity.

The references range from Dolly Parton to Marlene Deitrich and they each have something intriguing to say about what ( if anything) is real. The poems actually work as a defense for the fraudulent. Through various unique and engrossing narratives the reader comes to identify and root for the mimics of the world. There is something earnest and relatable in their desperate attempts to embody or echo other forms of greatness. Whether it’s a forger of artistic masterpieces or a daughter seeing reflections of her deceased parents in the world around her and in herself, the motif of doubling is used to impressive effect.

Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes is a rare and cohesive vision of poetic prowess. It manages to hit on many levels almost simultaneously while keeping its themes deftly in focus. In only 76 pages Nicky Beer is able to create an expansive, colorful and emotional kaleidoscope of grief, whimsy and the journey to discovering our own originality.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

REAL PHONIES AND GENUINE FAKES by Nicky Beer has such an awesome cover and the poems are great too! I really enjoyed reading this poetry book! I love how this cover perfectly matches the opening poem Drag Day at Dollywood which features multiple Dolly Partons. I loved how several of the poems have fun references to pop culture including Duckie Dale, Batman and David Bowie. I also enjoyed how so many different poem forms were utilized. My fave poem is Exclusive Interview. I loved that I’ve never read a poem like it before and how it left me with questions.
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Shoutout to Mary Speaker for the cover design and Dane Shue for the cover art!
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Thank you to Milkweed Editions for my uncorrected proof!

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

If we’re going to put Dolly on the cover, then I need at least 3 Dolly poems not just 1!!!! The pop-culture infused metaphors were the strongest, but my interest really waned in the second half scientific tone shift.

favs:

Drag Day at Dollywood
Self-Portrait as Duckie Dale
Forged Medieval German Church Fresco with Clandestine Marlene Dietrich
Notes on the Village of Liars
The Demolitionists

[Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is a damn treasure. A cohesive assemblage of poetry exploring the intersection between reality and illusion. Queer, heartfelt, sardonic, raw, and winking all at once. I'll absolutely be reading more work by Nicky Beer.

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. The poems in the first couple of sections and last couple were fabulous. I earmarked a lot of pages and underlined a ton of passages. Where it lost me was the extended contrapuntal section in the middle. While I love a good contrapuntal, the sheer number of them slowed the pacing and took up too much of the book when what I really enjoyed from Beer were the poems where pop culture and emotional distress took precedent.

Plus, I wanted at least one more Dolly poem!

[Desirae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicky Beer’s Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes does what the title says it will do: it flips the script. There are two of everything in this book, male and female, vision and revision, Dolly Parton and drag Dolly Parton, lady sawed in half and lady behind the illusion. There is a real and a fake, and more often than not, the object upon which the poet casts her eye and devotion is the fake.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love Nicky Beer's writing. Even though not every single poem really resonated with me personally, they're all beautifully written. I didn't expect anything less after enjoying The Diminishing House so much. (One of these days, I need to check out The Octopus Game.)

[Stacie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for Poetry with Pat. No fakes! Just genuine poems. Truth speakers include…
Drag Day at Dollywood
Two-Headed Taxidermied Calf
Still Life With Pork Livers Rolled Like Handkerchiefs
Forged medieval German Church fresco with clandestine Marlene Dietrich
The benevolent sisterhood of inconspicuous fabricators
Sawing a Lady in Half
The Stereoscopic Man
Exclusive Interview
Heart In turmeric
Because my grief was a tree

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's difficult for me to write poetry reviews. All art is subjective but I find poetry to be especially subjective.

There were a few poems in the collection that I really enjoyed. Most I found okay.

[emma]

“Yes, the eyes / were badly-shaped, but I almost / believed them anyway.”

[Awoman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me just say: There is NOTHING Biblical about this book. People know I try to stick with Biblical and non-offending material. This is just my "Disclaimer".

This is a new book the library in my county purchased recently. It is 90 pages long and I was able to read it in one night. It is what I call "pop poetry". A few of the poems did make me smile, others I got the idea that she was struggling to come up with something and I was not impressed. It's like karaoke: hit or miss.
Why I read this book? I saw it advertised in a new free magazine my library was handing out last month and the first couple pages were poetry books published recently. I LOVE poetry! Unfortunately, the library system in my county has some unknown person up at headquarters who picks and chooses which materials the county is going to purchase. It is very well known this person hates poetry with the very fabric of their being, but loves pornography.
I will come clean, I was the one who put the request in certain they were going to say "NO!!!!!". I made certain they knew that it was advertised in their "Book Page Magazine". Well, three weeks later it was checked out to me and in my hands. It was a "Twilight Zone" moment... it still is a "Twilight Zone" moment.
I can only recommend it to people who like such subject matter, even if they hate poetry.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about pop culture, icons, magicians, and strange tales.

from Two-Headed Taxidermied Calf: "I hated myself for pitying it— / nearly thirty years dead, and alive / for only a few hours— / as if that could do any good. / But there was something / in its tender swirls of ochre hair / that the amateur taxidermist / couldn't quite make / laughable."

from The Plagiarist: "I only steal from the ones / you've never heard of, / the ones whose fingers / shook too hard to hold / a pen, the ones who froze / with their heads to the ground / like cattle in a blizzard, / the ones who drowned / like witches in their sleep."

from Dear Bruce Wayne,: "My parents are dead, too. / A dirty, self-cannibalizing Gotham— / I also claim it, its city limits / built by my skin. I slough / and slough, but the city remains."

[Charisma (charismatic_bookworm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the premise of the poetry book. The imagery through each poem is haunting. I love that the author plays with different types of poetry as well as inspirations for them. I also love the exploration of sexuality, life and death, truth versus deceit, etc.

Now, was it the best poem book I’ve ever read? No. But it was fairly good and definitely leaves you questioning things but some poems are a bit harder to understand than others (and that is a big part of poetry) which made a percentage of this book not too appealing to me. However, I would consider picking up this authors poems again later in the future.

I line I loved (it made me laugh):

From “Exclusive Interview” -

“xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx?

Shit-sucking-motherfucking-cock-gobbling-cunt! Oh wait—no. Capricorn.”

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's possible I came to this book looking for something Beer doesn't want to give: I wanted formal experiments, and though there was a section of poems arranged in rows, in the stereoscope section, that wasn't really the interest of this book.

Instead, I guess, the goal was to wrestle with this "real fakes" theme, and I think I'm sort of interested in that. I've seen "Exit Through the Gift Shop" and read some about art forgeries. But I was never especially engaged by what Beer was saying about the subject.

I didn't hate this-- some of the poems I liked-- but as a book it didn't move or excite me.

[Deby Buchness · Rating 5 out of 5]

Discombobulating and time-warping, you never know where you will end up but will feel every twist of her razor-sharp knife. Nicky Beer cuts open pomp and circumstance, hyper-masculinity, faux grief, gratitude, and love to reveal their stench, their soft bellies, and their skeletons. It's a beautiful and haunting series of poems that had me inspired to interrogate life's weird rituals more. She is both vulnerable and ruthless as she uses her own voice (presumably) and character voices that make you both nostalgic and cringe. I loved this book of poems and will certainly re-read and re-read these again and again.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspired by the world around her, and with a sharp vocabulary of intellect and humor and wit, Beer’s writing seems to come from a place of sincere curiosity and continued obsessions. From cephalopods to stereoscopes to pop culture and beyond, her poems toe the line between science fiction’s absurdities and the tenderness of a prayer. That is to say: poetry that is difficult to classify and poetry that is masterfully done. Her newest collection is inventive and refreshing and playful and sharp. Read more in her interview here: http://www.neonpajamas.com/blog/nicky...

[Dorsey Craft · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite feature of this newest collection by Beer is the shifting point of view—personas include Marlene Dietrich and a series of contrapuntal pieces from the “Stereoscopic Man.” But the voice of the poet is not lost: standouts like “Self-Portrait Operating Heavy Machinery” and “The Poet Who Does Not Believe in Ghosts” illustrate the concerns of the speaker (death, grief, and depression among them) in devastating terms. Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes is a master class in handling persona in our contemporary moment.

[Connor · Rating 2 out of 5]

was hoping to like this, but aside from a few lines I enjoyed here and there, this really never clicked for me.

the sequence with the sterosphoic man was ambitious but kind of empty for me, and I think my least favorite had to be the Batman poem that ends with 'every woman is batman' and calls the joker's makeup 'drag that bruce think makes fun of his mother.'

I really liked "The Poet Who Does Not Believe in Ghosts" though.

[Anna Gasaway]

Luminous, feminist, fantabulous. From the first poem, "Drag Day at Dollywood," she takes us on a romp that interrogates what it means to be human, i.e. a real phony and a genuine fake. Issues of mental health and what it means to be a woman are analyzed. "Dear Bruce Wayne--" is as character study, an ode a call to action. "Admit it--what bugs you/ most about the Joker/ is his drag..." and "The moon waxes. The bruise/ wanes. Every woman is Batman." So succinct. Love it!

[Michelle Vaughn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gross poem along the lines of "Still Life with Pork Livers Rolled Like Handkerchiefs" really works for me, but a gross poem like "Scat" absolutely does not. Very hit-or-miss (I did not get the Stereoscopic Man section; it felt gimmicky and the format only irritated me), but when the poems hit, they really hit ("The Poet Who Does Not Believe in Ghosts" deeply moved me). Definitely a poet to look out for.

[Collin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weirdly, I liked the gimmicky poetry best. "Small Claims Courtship" and "Exclusive Interview" really lit up my neurons. The Marlene Dietrich-themed poems are good, too.

As with most poetry collections, there are hits and misses and a big swath of "okay." My favorite (least favorite?) miss is in "Dear Bruce Wayne,": "The moon waxes. The bruise / wanes. Every woman / is Batman." gag.

[Cheyenne Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it. I liked that a lot of the poems are just random. While, i can understand seeking poems that make you feel something sometimes just having a splendid and funny image in your head is enough! The Dolly poem was cute. Elegy made me almost shed a year. “Everyone cried, even the assistant principal he’d once called a Bitch to her face.” I also liked Because my grief was a tree.

[Elena]

The ones I loved, I loved! The others didn’t move me as much but, feeling motivated to read more poetry so that’s a success

My faves: Drag Day at Dollywood, Self Portrait as Duckie Dale, Forged Medieval German Church Fresco with Clandestine Marlene Dietrich, Small Claims Courtship, & The Poet Who Does Not Believe in Ghosts 😗

[Kurtie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creative linkage of drag, taxidermy, plagiarism, and other ways to disguise, deceive, and impersonate. Standouts, the delightful Drag Day at Dollywood create images of a sea of Dollies. The Stereoscopic Man a creative twist on a shape poem. And Dear Bruce Wayne in which we see glitter kisses; are asked who would trade laughter for righteousness; and are reminded every woman is Batman.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is a poem? Beer offers a plethora of answers in this splendid collection of poetizing.

Favorite Specimens:
“Drag Day at Dollywood”
“Two-Headed Taxidermied Calf”
“Still Life with Pork Livers Rolled Like Handkerchiefs”
“The Stereoscopic Man”
“Small Claims Courtship”
“Exclusive Interview”
“The Poet Who Does Not Believe in Ghosts”
“Heart in turmeric”
“Because my grief was a tree”
“Revision”

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

"she believes death is God's apology
for suffering
a promise that the deepest human pain
will never be eternal

the sudden cataclysm of the brain
the helplessness of search parties
children savaged, watching one's beloved go mad
the slow betrayal of the body

it is death, and not the rainbow,
that is God's covenant with mankind"

[Cassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

a varied collection approaching the subject of illusion and the reasons why we choose to make it - and how art, in its own way, is the greatest illusion. the section devoted to the stereoscopic man is particularly inventive. not quite an emotional grab so much as an intellectual one.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

A goal of mine is to read a broader range of genres, and this queer poetry collection was perfect for Pride. Favorites included Dear Bruce Wayne; The Poet Who Does Not Believe in Ghosts; and Exclusive Interview (because I love blackout poetry, always).