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Yellowrass
n Yellowgrass by Allan Safarik we see a new direction from the author of the award-winning When Light Falls From The Sun (Hagios, 2005). While the themes of prairie landscape and people are present there is also a spare and relentless quality to the work that makes these poems both powerful and haunting. Anyone who has read Safarik will know that he engages readers with his acerbic humour, his forthright honesty and his take-no-prisioners approach to poetic language. With the blinders off, this is poetic vision from a poet who understands an uncompromizing picture of the human, and animal, experience.
120 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 12, 2025
I only made it 35% of the way through the book before I decided to give up on it. Postcard from Moscow had the line:
"The rattling washer spins wildly
like a sex machine massaging
a naked brain with soapy water"
That should have been enough to make me question sooner whether or not I should continue reading this book. It's on page 33. However, it was Beauty Parlour Tips that finally did me in with the line:
"Trust the venerable Chinese to pander to horny pandas."
That finally did me in. This same, short poem also mentions chimpanzee sex before going into "panda porn films".
While I have enjoyed some lines from some of the poems and I found a few short poems I enjoyed while skimming through the book, that's why I bothered to pick it up to read in the first place; I'm afraid it's simply filled with too many poems that I just don't enjoy enough to want to finish it.
"The rattling washer spins wildly
like a sex machine massaging
a naked brain with soapy water"
That should have been enough to make me question sooner whether or not I should continue reading this book. It's on page 33. However, it was Beauty Parlour Tips that finally did me in with the line:
"Trust the venerable Chinese to pander to horny pandas."
That finally did me in. This same, short poem also mentions chimpanzee sex before going into "panda porn films".
While I have enjoyed some lines from some of the poems and I found a few short poems I enjoyed while skimming through the book, that's why I bothered to pick it up to read in the first place; I'm afraid it's simply filled with too many poems that I just don't enjoy enough to want to finish it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2017
Since this is the first book of poetry I've ever read I can't really say anything or compare it. Enjoyable enough.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews