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Hyperphantasia
Sara Deniz Akant’s HYPERPHANTASIA explodes the sonnet’s sonic and imaginative capabilities via infestation dreams, open tabs, and other disruptive forms of longing and (dis)belonging: the epistolary, epic, ballad, or just “some oracle shit” (history). Phanta—our AI BFF, echoing troll, or spiritual center—sweetly sings a “nekromantic soundtrack” into the reader’s ear through the “holographic non-place” of dove-robots, sleeping boyfriends, murderous grooms, and empty code. In these broken songs, “the women haunt themselves” through the quotidian trappings of daily routine: unanswered letters, dreamscapes, and ritualized obsessions. And yet, Akant’s celebratory second collection refuses to make precious bores of gender, grief, lust, or life. Just like the eponymous hero and prismatic villain of Phanta herself, the trash in these poems not only “sucks our hunger dry” but also “multiplies" in an attempt to reclaim the (often damning) myths that surround the culturally mixed, feminized body.
“Drawing from tropes of the abject feminine in vintage horror and confessional poetry, Sara Deniz Akant’s poems move between epistolary and diary in letters and confessions to and from Phanta—a mechanical hydra, a spider, a sequential self-attracting many-sexed organism, an artificial intelligence, a ‘broken device filled with children.’ Phanta has been the ringtone on the self-help hotline and the footnote in the DSM case study and the author of herself. This is a book made of milk, blood, cum, sap, piss, yolk, and sweat—like being, suddenly, the living part of a Kiki Smith installation. Akant writes: ‘unpacking Phanta / is like: poem, poem, poem, porn.’ It really is.” — Divya Victor
“There’s a stubborn beauty in these pieces; the poems erupt the same moment they’re read. Akant’s HYPERPHANTASIA does something akin to excavation in its preoccupation with fragments and how they dialogue together: names, houses, bodies, cities, machines. The self, the narrator, is kaleidoscopically scattered, threaded throughout with the persistently honest chatter of Phanta: the observer-effect put on full display.” — Hala Alyan
“With sonic reverberations of Turkish, phone mistranslations and ‘garbage texts,’ Akant’s haunting work captures the strangest moments at the end of the world—a wedding where the groom looks to the crowd and asks ‘what’s the fucking point?’ as the speaker searches his pockets for drugs. In these dazzling poems, the self is a mask making new worlds from the dead—a ghost crawling out of bed—and the defiant speaker stranded in her own digital terror.” Sandra Simonds
“HYPERPHANTASIA features a recurring cast of characters who flit across the pages—heard and misheard phrases echoing around a recognizable and harsh environment—mysteriously rendered into poetry. Sara Deniz Akant is a kind of witch, and this book forges a new genre of alchemical realism.” —Chris Kraus
“If racial capitalism has chopped us up into tiny lil’ pieces, who says those shards can’t scream-sing themselves toward another life? Pizza Bagels™, Charmander, your father’s unfurling tongue, a collection of white girls, the therapist’s parrot wilding out in the closet—you are stuffed with multitudes, Sultan Saroh! If you have any ‘undealt with trauma,’ please do read this book. Akant has carved out a space for us to let our visions grow a spine and have a fucking life!” —Jennifer Tamayo
“Akant conjures the ancestral surrealism, something long before the word knew itself. The life we trust becomes a blast of light through a new and clear lens with this book. Do you also love to loiter in weird and brilliant poems until your purpose for being there becomes clear? Well, here we are; I am glad we found our way to these codes and keys of the Deniz Dimension.” —Ca Conrad
Turkish-American poet and performer Sara Deniz Akant was born and raised in New York. She is the author of BABETTE (Rescue Press, 2015), selected by Maggie Nelson; Parades (Omnidawn, 2014), selected by Gillian Conoley; and Latronic Strag (Persistent Editions, 2015). Her poetry has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Denver Quarterly, and Lana Turner.
“Drawing from tropes of the abject feminine in vintage horror and confessional poetry, Sara Deniz Akant’s poems move between epistolary and diary in letters and confessions to and from Phanta—a mechanical hydra, a spider, a sequential self-attracting many-sexed organism, an artificial intelligence, a ‘broken device filled with children.’ Phanta has been the ringtone on the self-help hotline and the footnote in the DSM case study and the author of herself. This is a book made of milk, blood, cum, sap, piss, yolk, and sweat—like being, suddenly, the living part of a Kiki Smith installation. Akant writes: ‘unpacking Phanta / is like: poem, poem, poem, porn.’ It really is.” — Divya Victor
“There’s a stubborn beauty in these pieces; the poems erupt the same moment they’re read. Akant’s HYPERPHANTASIA does something akin to excavation in its preoccupation with fragments and how they dialogue together: names, houses, bodies, cities, machines. The self, the narrator, is kaleidoscopically scattered, threaded throughout with the persistently honest chatter of Phanta: the observer-effect put on full display.” — Hala Alyan
“With sonic reverberations of Turkish, phone mistranslations and ‘garbage texts,’ Akant’s haunting work captures the strangest moments at the end of the world—a wedding where the groom looks to the crowd and asks ‘what’s the fucking point?’ as the speaker searches his pockets for drugs. In these dazzling poems, the self is a mask making new worlds from the dead—a ghost crawling out of bed—and the defiant speaker stranded in her own digital terror.” Sandra Simonds
“HYPERPHANTASIA features a recurring cast of characters who flit across the pages—heard and misheard phrases echoing around a recognizable and harsh environment—mysteriously rendered into poetry. Sara Deniz Akant is a kind of witch, and this book forges a new genre of alchemical realism.” —Chris Kraus
“If racial capitalism has chopped us up into tiny lil’ pieces, who says those shards can’t scream-sing themselves toward another life? Pizza Bagels™, Charmander, your father’s unfurling tongue, a collection of white girls, the therapist’s parrot wilding out in the closet—you are stuffed with multitudes, Sultan Saroh! If you have any ‘undealt with trauma,’ please do read this book. Akant has carved out a space for us to let our visions grow a spine and have a fucking life!” —Jennifer Tamayo
“Akant conjures the ancestral surrealism, something long before the word knew itself. The life we trust becomes a blast of light through a new and clear lens with this book. Do you also love to loiter in weird and brilliant poems until your purpose for being there becomes clear? Well, here we are; I am glad we found our way to these codes and keys of the Deniz Dimension.” —Ca Conrad
Turkish-American poet and performer Sara Deniz Akant was born and raised in New York. She is the author of BABETTE (Rescue Press, 2015), selected by Maggie Nelson; Parades (Omnidawn, 2014), selected by Gillian Conoley; and Latronic Strag (Persistent Editions, 2015). Her poetry has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Denver Quarterly, and Lana Turner.
- GenresPoetry
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Published September 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 14, 2024
My first impression of this book was noticing the level of comfort in spoken
language, specifically that of a very current jargon that is familiar to me. Through this, I am
thinking of the confidence required to do clown acts. Although the goal of the performance of a
clown is usually to be perceived as dumb, unskilled or less-than in general, it actually requires an
extreme level of comfort in their practice, their skills and themselves. I see this in the ability to
use our young adult, everyday language in ways that subvert it, making it a tool for poetry where
usually we expect more elevated speech, with topics that we expect should be expressed in more
impressive words.
For Akant, this manifests more subtly, like language recovered from speech that
happened, mixed in with that more elevated poetic voice. Like on page 60, where she introduces
a bit of dialogue at the beginning of the poem, and then she says “those chandler eyes tho bro.”
which she then repeats at the end of the poem. Is this her internal voice? Is it something she
heard from someone else, and is repeating? In the context of the book, she may be clowning
Chandler, but she is also very much clowning herself, as it is another moment where she is
highlighting her experience with English as a second language speakers around her. I think of my
own friends who speak English as a second language and how much fun they have with words
like bro, motherfucker, bitch, etc. However, Akant, as a writer in academic circles, could easily
have overlooked or subdued that perceived exaggeration of jargon that ESL speakers use, yet she
doesn’t shy from it, and injects it into her poetry in a way that most non-immigrant/diaspora
Americans would not see any significance in. She performs “unskilled” (clown) through her
skill/ knowledge of the ESL experience.
Similarly, Akant does this with rhythm. The book is not overtly lyrical, but it doesn’t shy
away from prosody either. A beautiful moment of this is on page 27, where most of the poem is
in free verse, until the last line of the second verse, and the first line of the third, which mirror
each other with 10 syllables, an end rhyme, and even though there is no formal meter, the
syllables’ patterns mirror each other:
u u u u / u / u u /
She says that the flesh is always opaque.
u u u u u / u u / /
But I can be the cum on my own face, Sylvie.
The beginning of the lines are all unstressed until flesh/ cum, and then we have just two/ three
more stresses which almost perfectly line up. She scatters moments of perfect “poetry” like this
throughout the book that reminds the reader of the form, the same way making a metaphorical
character named “Phanta” overtly places us in the literariness of it. This is a form of clowning
too, almost making fun of itself through the form and stylistic choices, the same way she does
with the colloquial language.
language, specifically that of a very current jargon that is familiar to me. Through this, I am
thinking of the confidence required to do clown acts. Although the goal of the performance of a
clown is usually to be perceived as dumb, unskilled or less-than in general, it actually requires an
extreme level of comfort in their practice, their skills and themselves. I see this in the ability to
use our young adult, everyday language in ways that subvert it, making it a tool for poetry where
usually we expect more elevated speech, with topics that we expect should be expressed in more
impressive words.
For Akant, this manifests more subtly, like language recovered from speech that
happened, mixed in with that more elevated poetic voice. Like on page 60, where she introduces
a bit of dialogue at the beginning of the poem, and then she says “those chandler eyes tho bro.”
which she then repeats at the end of the poem. Is this her internal voice? Is it something she
heard from someone else, and is repeating? In the context of the book, she may be clowning
Chandler, but she is also very much clowning herself, as it is another moment where she is
highlighting her experience with English as a second language speakers around her. I think of my
own friends who speak English as a second language and how much fun they have with words
like bro, motherfucker, bitch, etc. However, Akant, as a writer in academic circles, could easily
have overlooked or subdued that perceived exaggeration of jargon that ESL speakers use, yet she
doesn’t shy from it, and injects it into her poetry in a way that most non-immigrant/diaspora
Americans would not see any significance in. She performs “unskilled” (clown) through her
skill/ knowledge of the ESL experience.
Similarly, Akant does this with rhythm. The book is not overtly lyrical, but it doesn’t shy
away from prosody either. A beautiful moment of this is on page 27, where most of the poem is
in free verse, until the last line of the second verse, and the first line of the third, which mirror
each other with 10 syllables, an end rhyme, and even though there is no formal meter, the
syllables’ patterns mirror each other:
u u u u / u / u u /
She says that the flesh is always opaque.
u u u u u / u u / /
But I can be the cum on my own face, Sylvie.
The beginning of the lines are all unstressed until flesh/ cum, and then we have just two/ three
more stresses which almost perfectly line up. She scatters moments of perfect “poetry” like this
throughout the book that reminds the reader of the form, the same way making a metaphorical
character named “Phanta” overtly places us in the literariness of it. This is a form of clowning
too, almost making fun of itself through the form and stylistic choices, the same way she does
with the colloquial language.
October 17, 2022
At times quite inaccessible, the poems hang on inference and shared joke - there's an extensive listing of meanings and sources of phrases in the front/back. Which is another schtick - the poetry collection is numbered back to front, with the title pages and tale of contents in the back, the acknowledgements and glossary in the front, and each 'section' followed by its title card.
It's kinda weird but it took me a minute to get that? I was through the second section when I said, "Wait a minute - these random numbers on teh pages are going down ... is it ..." flip flip flip "aaah, I get it."
The poems also reference one another, often echoing phrases from one to another in chains, increasing the desire to flip back and forth. I found myself enjoying it much more the deeper I got into it, when I stopped trying to treat each poem as a solo object.
It's kinda weird but it took me a minute to get that? I was through the second section when I said, "Wait a minute - these random numbers on teh pages are going down ... is it ..." flip flip flip "aaah, I get it."
The poems also reference one another, often echoing phrases from one to another in chains, increasing the desire to flip back and forth. I found myself enjoying it much more the deeper I got into it, when I stopped trying to treat each poem as a solo object.
August 31, 2024
3.75⭐
Surreal.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this collection of poems. While I'll admit I love what the story represents and I think that some of these poems could be deeply impactful for others, I'm not quite sure if this was for me.
I do think, though, that there are some out there who can benefit from reading some of these deeply personal and powerful poems about loss, grief, self-acceptance, and trauma. That's the power of poetry: you're able to see yourself in the written words on the page and find that connection in shared experiences.
Surreal.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this collection of poems. While I'll admit I love what the story represents and I think that some of these poems could be deeply impactful for others, I'm not quite sure if this was for me.
I do think, though, that there are some out there who can benefit from reading some of these deeply personal and powerful poems about loss, grief, self-acceptance, and trauma. That's the power of poetry: you're able to see yourself in the written words on the page and find that connection in shared experiences.
March 12, 2023
++
Now I'm doing basic things and having basic thoughts.
Does everyone wish they could have fucked you once you're dead?
Will all my ex-boyfriends hang themselves in my apartment?
++
Now I'm doing basic things and having basic thoughts.
Does everyone wish they could have fucked you once you're dead?
Will all my ex-boyfriends hang themselves in my apartment?
++
October 4, 2023
The body is an event.
"My answer to the question is just your question out of tune."
"There are always two titles. There are always two novels."
"My answer to the question is just your question out of tune."
"There are always two titles. There are always two novels."
March 27, 2024
(3.75) Exciting, a little too sprawled for me
August 6, 2025
love the language the surreality the image of this!
plus i love a surprise all-sonnet collection
plus i love a surprise all-sonnet collection
September 30, 2024
September 2024 update: Just reread this for my MFA class on poetic obsession, and I feel like I "got it" way more this time. I realized that this is a book of sonnets – mind blown.
Original review (August 2023): A technology-soaked, tightly thematic collection of poems exploring artificial intelligence, illness, addiction, and the diaspora. I read a lot of poetry collections, but I found this one to be more inaccessible than most- it's definitely not for beginners. I was left not quite sure if I "got" the overall point, but I was quite impressed by individual poems and stanzas within this difficult collection.
Original review (August 2023): A technology-soaked, tightly thematic collection of poems exploring artificial intelligence, illness, addiction, and the diaspora. I read a lot of poetry collections, but I found this one to be more inaccessible than most- it's definitely not for beginners. I was left not quite sure if I "got" the overall point, but I was quite impressed by individual poems and stanzas within this difficult collection.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews