The Pleasure Principle

by Jon Loomis

Jon Loomis's new collection of poems visits big subjects by way of the commonplace. While The Pleasure Principle is full of surprises, both narrative and metaphoric, it is more than anything a humane and thoughtful exploration of the human passion, mortality, cross-dressing, time, tourism, art, the shifty nature of reality, and, always considered in Loomis's work, the unknowable absolute.

Genres: Poetry

71 pages, Paperback

First published November 6, 2001

About the author

Jon Loomis is an American poet and writer. He is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Vanitas Motel, his first book of poetry, won the 1997 annual FIELD prize in poetry. He is also the author of the Frank Coffin mysteries set in Provincetown, MA.

Reviews

[Tanner Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Some of these are so good

I really love the imaginative, sexless ones but the poet critiques himself when he says the poems reduce themselves to sex and deaths and I agree. Not that they don’t have a place in writing but I feel like he’s at his best when he’s admiring and imaginative rather than seedily pensive.

Favorites are:
‘On The First Tee With Charles Wright’
‘Desiccated Mouse Found on Screen Porch’
‘Misfit Farm’
‘Fire Ants’
‘Deer Hit’
‘The Pleasure Principle’