hatefuck the reader

by Penny Goring

Written by rewriting Autoportrait by Edouard Levé, sentence by sentence, to make her own portrait. A distinctive Penny Goring piece of poetry, haunting, warping, relentless. A Penny Goring classic.

Genres: Poetry

98 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2016

Reviews

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

wow, intens

[Jack Skelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book works like visual art. You’re midstream in the artist’s images / feelz. Front and back, end and start are arbitrary, as frames are arbitrary in low-fi BIG PRINT, that’s always flowing, going. Goring. Pain is tangled in each image. Bad blood. Shell shocks. But also vision, force of will, mammalian instinct, tons more fiercely defying an “Identity” of self-doubt. Survivor guilt gold.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

All detail and art and pain.

[Max Edgren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oemotståndligt ärlig men aningen vulgär 3.5

[Always Becominging · Rating 5 out of 5]

Penny Goring pours everything into this. Though she borrows the form from Édouard Levé’s Autoportrait, I cant imagine a more personal text. Goring exposes thoughts that would not be shared in any other context. Raw and yet honed. I love the way this is published with the large font and non-sequitur photos interrupting the text mid-sentence.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"in a lecture at college, a girl in my group misheard 'la belle epoch' as 'the belly pop.' i have been loved by violent men and women. at times i have lived with people who are now dead, believing it to be a forever thing. an aunt of mine threw herself under a train when my uncle left her for an air hostess, at her funeral one of my other uncles tried to shoot him, he left the air hostess for a girl who sells lingerie. i wonder if i would choose one night of passion with my true love/both of us tortured to death in the morning or a lifetime apart/my true love lives/me married to the evil king" (50).

[Sofia Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blunt + visceral with dollops of humour

[iz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raw. Fast. Provocative.