Florence Salmon’s Reviews > Martyr! > Status Update

Martyr is anti-performative in a way that comes across as performative, it's wild that a poet with a pompadour hairstyle is complaining about performative readers in his performative ass book; he's the most egregious example of a western male poet ever

Started reading and IMMEDIATELY found that almost every (mostly male) writer I know personally brings these exact tones / themes to their prose? Naming five obscure artists per paragraph is lazy and psudointillectual; over-elaborating on allegories is patronising; every irritating man I know (and I won't name any names... but don't worry it ain't you) is trying so hard to 'stick it to pretentious culture', but that only aggravates it. Sometimes, you just gotta be cringe and own it, fellas.

But apart from allat, it's pretty bloody tasty omnomnom

'Why yes, ladies, I do know about those pesky men that read [insert obscure media--author, tv show, painting] and I'm inserting them into my writing to let you know that I am somehow above them and their work' - Kaveh Akbar, definitely

You know what, the more I think about this book, the worse I feel about it--I'm going to dock it another star

Hee hee! My apologies, good sir! I just thrive on making men insecure about their art. It brings me such joy.