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Evening Man
A signed chapbook of 26 poems by Frederick Seidel -- some new, some previously published in magazines and journals -- in a limited edition of 500 copies.
- GenresPoetry
55 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 23, 2016
A dual-review of 'Evening Man' and 'Ooga-Booga.'
Yet more evidence that honest reportage from the disaffected has more critical force than puritanical censorship: it's impossible to read this and feel anything but disgust for Seidel, his world (i.e., the ultra-rich), and the world surrounding that world, in which everything is for sale, for the purposes of sex and hedonism. He's a bit like Houllebecq, if Houllebecq was much smarter and a better writer, and was a poet, rather than a novelist with poetry on the side.
And formally, he's a breath of fresh air: none of your precise, non-rhythmic patter; no hesitation in throwing in cliched rhymes if they'll get the job done; willing to find the tunes in words from anywhere (bad pop song rhythm; good hip-hop rhythm; Eliotesque slides and so on). Where most poets seem to think sentences are either logocentric impositions on their own free spirit, or that syntax is for other people, Seidel makes do with almost Hemingway-levels of minimalism, as in this final stanza of 'Ode to Spring':
"I go off and have sexual intercourse.
The woman is the woman I love.
The room displays thirteen lilies.
I stand on the surface."
The poems in this book mostly avoid neat closure, as here, where a trimeter would have made more conventional sense; I found this frustrating, but of course, that's the point.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of reading 'Evening Man' and 'Ooga-Booga' back to back; the unvarying themes (which Seidel himself pokes fun at) aren't entirely saved by the varying forms, and by the end I was ready for something else.
Yet more evidence that honest reportage from the disaffected has more critical force than puritanical censorship: it's impossible to read this and feel anything but disgust for Seidel, his world (i.e., the ultra-rich), and the world surrounding that world, in which everything is for sale, for the purposes of sex and hedonism. He's a bit like Houllebecq, if Houllebecq was much smarter and a better writer, and was a poet, rather than a novelist with poetry on the side.
And formally, he's a breath of fresh air: none of your precise, non-rhythmic patter; no hesitation in throwing in cliched rhymes if they'll get the job done; willing to find the tunes in words from anywhere (bad pop song rhythm; good hip-hop rhythm; Eliotesque slides and so on). Where most poets seem to think sentences are either logocentric impositions on their own free spirit, or that syntax is for other people, Seidel makes do with almost Hemingway-levels of minimalism, as in this final stanza of 'Ode to Spring':
"I go off and have sexual intercourse.
The woman is the woman I love.
The room displays thirteen lilies.
I stand on the surface."
The poems in this book mostly avoid neat closure, as here, where a trimeter would have made more conventional sense; I found this frustrating, but of course, that's the point.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of reading 'Evening Man' and 'Ooga-Booga' back to back; the unvarying themes (which Seidel himself pokes fun at) aren't entirely saved by the varying forms, and by the end I was ready for something else.
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July 30, 2011Somewhere between the Beats, Leonard Cohen and Sylvia Plath's love-child, John Ashbery's free associatiative style and a freestyle, couplet- oriented hip-hop artist, if the hip-hop artist was white, old, rich and rapping about the Hamptons. Infuriating, impossible to catagorize, and puzzling. Is it good? I don't know. But his metaphorical precision and his Stevie Smith-like meter (metier?) makes him interesting, despite his rather loose outdated racial and sexist stereotypes, ironic or no.
He has gotten press in many "mainstream" publications -- N.Y Times, N.Y. Book Review, but...I'm flabbergasted. He is alternately dark, and flip -- coy, and blatant. His mix of louche vulnerability is both engaging and alienating. Is his individual vision universal? In a psychotic sense, yes...but, saying that, that might make me psychotic. Does this former international motorcycle-riding playboy have poetic game? That is a question you are better off answering yourself. I say, Fred Seidel, you are confounding.
He has gotten press in many "mainstream" publications -- N.Y Times, N.Y. Book Review, but...I'm flabbergasted. He is alternately dark, and flip -- coy, and blatant. His mix of louche vulnerability is both engaging and alienating. Is his individual vision universal? In a psychotic sense, yes...but, saying that, that might make me psychotic. Does this former international motorcycle-riding playboy have poetic game? That is a question you are better off answering yourself. I say, Fred Seidel, you are confounding.
August 10, 2016
Evil, evil, evil.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews