Verse Noir

by David Rachels

Poetry in the noir vein. Sharp as a razor. Blunt as a fist.

Genres: Poetry

71 pages

First published July 17, 2010

About the author

David Rachels writes crime and teaches English at Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Verse Noir, as the title implies, is a collection of noir-inspired poetry.

But Dan, you ask. What are you doing reading poetry? In addition to having a kick ass noir blog, David Rachels is a member of the Hard Case Crime group here on Goodreads. He also happens to be on the short list of Goodreads authors who aren't assholes. When he offered a few review copies of Verse Noir on his blog, I jumped at the chance. Was I disappointed? I'll let the following snippet speak for itself:

Love means
Having to say you are sorry
Every minute of your life

Verse Noir is obviously a labor of love from someone with deep feelings for poetry and noir and fuses them into the best synergy since chocolate met peanut butter. Still not convinced? How about this one:

He thought that
He could learn to
Sleep with one eye
Open.

It turned out that
The challenge was to
Sleep with one eye
Closed.


Good, right? This is just the tip of the iceberg. Topics such as marriage, murder, burglary, and others are covered in bleak poems like the ones above. Verse Noir reads like Rachels distilled decades of reading noir down into seventy pages of pure gold. If you like poetry and noir, this is the perfect book for you. I leave you with the 12th rule:


Never forget that
Your retirement plan
Is Death

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I don't give it five stars, who will? You may read a sample here:

http://noirboiled.blogspot.com/2010/0...

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Brautiganesqe, but darker, much darker . . . and humorous. This was probably one of the funniest books of poetry I've ever read. I laughed out loud through out it. I would love to read more.

[Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect from this collection, but I was floored by what I got. I opened the book and started laughing and enjoying the first few poems. I found myself telling my wife "Listen to this..." because it was so funny or just insightfully written. After a few minutes she told me to shut up because I was reading every poem aloud! She doesn't share my appreciation of noir, but she picked up the book and read it because of how much I enjoyed the poems. This book is very enjoyable and is the type of book I will be passing around to others in my circle of friends who enjoy humor in a dark vein.