Sprawl

by Robert Fitterman

Genres: Poetry

81 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2010

Reviews

[Al Filreis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This found/appropriated language - taken from online talk about chain stores and restaurants in malls - is at times very moving. I was expecting more obviously dramatic irony and satire. There's a tremendous sympathy implicit in the method of letting people (duped, in my view, by all this retail crappiness) speak for themselves about their needs, framed/bound satisfactions, and disappointments. The project is democratic in that sense.

[Alex Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here we have a conceptual poetic view appropriating text surrounding urban sprawl, in particular the mass mall, with its stores and its history. This is pretty much what you'd expect as a straight shot, no satire, no real explication of the degradation of the human condition. In that sense it's somewhat dull, because once you understand the apparatus it's just rote explication.