Check Out A Million Bears Conceived By Spencer Madsen Distributed In Visual Format

guys this poem

UGH MY HEART Received this gem in the mail today, after such a long time of waiting I quickly got to reading it.
I finished reading not too long after I got it, and man I sure do love it, I was so stoked when I found out he was reprinting them in December, so I quickly snagged it, Spencer's "A Million Bears" is full of heartache and giggles but mostly, heartache, I loved how between poems he added in a tweet from either Kanye orCent to spice things up, and especially the fact that he put my favorite tweet by Kanye in there.
Spencer Madsen is a star and I love "A Million Bears" to death, I received this book in the mail today, I read this book tonight, I read this book instead of sleeping, I wasn't sleeping because life seemed pointless and therefore sleep seemed pointless, I feel like Spencer Madsen would understand this, I tweeted and read other things online and had The Dark Knight and then Momento on in the background while I read this book.
This book includes tweets. I like the way the form of the poetry seemed to get less simple/controlled as the book progressed, Reading this book made me want to hurry up and write a book, A very sweet/cute chapbook of chat excerpts came with this book, Reading it made me feel like I knew Spencer Madsen better, Spencer Madsen is my friend, Spencer Madsen is fantastic. This book is fantastic

I am sorry if this review is less than fantastic even though everything is fantastic hehe I still haven't slept hehe sitelink tumblr. com/post/

.stars. Good, but short. I liked the selections fromCent's Twitter, Looking forward to the next book by this writer, sitelink blogspot. com/ I wasn't nearly as in love with this book as I thought I would be,

Spencer Madsen was, for all intents and purposes, my introduction to altlit poetry, and altlit in general, I, like many other people, saw his 'sad cat poem' on Tumblr and was immediately smitten there was so much rawness in his writing, something indescribably sad that made me feel like the sad person inside me crying about life in general was someone that Spencer Madsen was deeply in touch with and wanted to give a voice to.


What I found on finally receiving and digging into this collection, however, was someone who has a slew of mundane, mopey thoughts, and no elegant way to express them.
The 'sad cat poem' isn't a hallmark of beatific language, but it certainly has some care and attention put into its arrangement.
It expresses a deep, existential melancholy, and pulls at the animalloving heartstrings in the process, The poem begins 'my cat is sad / no one else in his family is a cat / we are all human except for him / he is excluded from most things'.
It goes on to reach a sort of disenfranchised longing from the guise of Spencer's cat: 'what is that / why it and not me / please can you look at me and love me too / can i have some of your food i don't like my food so much'.
Even reading it over again, it still feels powerfulthough, I will say that in the second edition printing, the typography for this page is more tightly condensed, which I feel detracted from the reading.


Outside of the above poem, however, Spencer Madsen barely expresses anything in a cogent fashion other than the most simplistic "i am sad / unrelated things / look how sad i am" not an actual quote.
I appreciate the honesty and confessional elements therein, but reading page after page of the same, ineloquently expressed sentiment was fairly grating.
The most powerful poems were the ones in which Madsen addressed past lovers, tho even those too seemed to hit the same stride after a while.
Succinctly put, there's a perfect level between trying and not trying in some of these poems, but whenever a poem falls to one side of the other, it often feels flat and unappealing.


I still enjoyed this collection, if only for the earnest misery and selfdoubt it presentsI think there's a lot of room for refinement and more directed elements in Spencer Madsen's poetry, and I'd like to see that from him in future collections.
For now, 'a million bears' was a mildly enjoyable read, though one that I felt could have packed more punch if Spencer had sunken his teeth in properly.
A lot of selfabsorbtion laid bare here, Raw sincerity is admirable in a way, . . but

tedious in another.

"chai tea in my backpack / who's going to fuck with me, " That's pretty funny.






I follow Spencer Madsen on twitter and was so so so so happy when he visited his parents and found some extra copies of this book.
I'd wanted to read it ever since his cat poem went viral, This book is a collection of poems and tweets which hit me at my core, a bit, in a way that not many other people can do.
I hope someday more people can read it, Ah, altlit poetry.


First of all, this chapbook has some lovely moments, In fact, in one of my poetry classes in college we had to pick a poet's style to emulate and use as inspiration and I was so in love with the cat poem because it's probably the best existential animal poem ever written that I chose Spencer Madsen.
I badgered him over email until he sold me a copy of a million bears and set to work, There are some great lines and thoughts that encouraged me to switch up my style, adopting a more personal, concise tone.


However, the same professor and poet who taught this class gave a piece of advice that sticks in my mind when I read any poem basically, that poetry is discernable from random snippets of writing in its intent.


I like Madsen, I enjoy his style. Altlit poetry is a fascinating world, But as many times as Madsen so perfectly captured human emotion, confusion, inner monologue, and pop culture, he also seemed to be stumbling over things with little intent, which at times made it hard to find anything to tie his words down.


I see a point, and at times it was cutting and emotive, but altogether I feel like I still need something that was promised and not quite fulfilled.


That being said I'll probably pick it up again when I'm feeling angsty and itchy, I am interested in reading more of Madsen's work as well to see how he grows the raw seeds of poetry encapsulated in this chapbook.
the second edition can be found here
sorryhouse. com/product/am .