don't think I can really say I've read this book yet, From what I can tell you must first let its new language "greet" you, and then do it all it again, ideally in a longduring sitting.
I read the first half or so over a long spell and then took in the last half in a short period of time.
There are times at which I wanted moments of settling down from the alien and intensely eventful language for a breath, but I do think that would weaken the book into inconsistency.
I admire it for the bold world it's boldly created, "Who can relax in our republic now that it's laid its terrible eggs on our tongues" sitelink abandoned.
life's too short. this book scared the crap out of me! Grotesque and violent, surreal, absurdist, fantastic, Sabrina Orah Mark with fewer dolls and more animated carcasses or Ariana Reines if she told fairy tales:
In the forest of ovaries, crimson trees snap beneath the
weight of their egg sacs.
With a large, pearlcovered button, I
fasten the thick flaps of skin over the holes in my abdomen.
There are hairy rivers I will not cross, Dolls climb backwards
out of my mouth, . .
The Motherbody lives in a black velveteen parlor littered
with anesthesia canisters, As she works, glass figurines crowd
around her macular hole, Raptor fetuses shriek toward her
through the tired skies,
Midway through the book I found Glenum's appendixed Manifesto of the AntiReal, which propelled me into I AM LOSING MY MIND:
The AntiReal is that which seeks to manifest itself through the secret sidedoor to the Sublime rather than through the mockworld of Realism.
. .
"Defile! Defile!" shriek the Obliterati as they vandalize the museum of silence, Secretly, they, to, are wetnurses to sentimentality,
Sentimentality is a form of exploitation, a connivance with official lies, Hang sentimentality on the gallows of Emergency,
Glenum summons her Surrealist predecessors and dismisses them in the same breath: The King is dead.
Long live the King. By making for us a nightmare otherworld full of pregnant spiderqueens, skincapes, goat carcasses and braying angels with advanced weaponry and baroque wings, she declares her intention to draw our attention to the violence of language and the violence of thought, the violence of cultural mythology of queens, pornos, models, wicked witches, sock monkeys, ghouls, vanillaand the absolute dreadfulness of living inside of a carcass.
A carcass that is marked by signifiers: mother, Tits. Witch. Nails, amnesia, lace, skin. Ovaries, nerves, penises. Versace. Forest. Hearse. Hair. And so on.
Wellplayed, Lara Glenum,
The Hounds of No shocked me with its adherence to the principles of the AntiReal, as outlined in the Appendix.
I've never read anything like it, I was loaned this book by a friend, who described it as surreal and violent, and I concur with his assessment.
Glenum's pieces as published here are better digested as a whole than the original, piecemeal way I had begun to read it.
Usually I'll open a poetry book and randomly select a piece to read, That technique didn't work so well with The Hounds of No, Once I made the commitment to covertocover it, I saw patterns, characters emerging that tied the works together as a whole for me.
I started to form a mental map of the landscape of her mind, a census of the population of No.
I was also surprised to find a line which perhaps inspired/was inspired by a song by Neutral Milk Hotel.
I can see how their music meshes with Glenum's poetry, I can even imagine the entire album being inspired by the book,
Thank you, Lara Glenum, for giving me a new way to look at the constructs of language.
.
sew the animals into your stomach
but who can / relax in our
republic now that it's laid its terrible eggs on our / tongues
Pomplemoose Pass: famed for its sparkling glass road, which leads directly from the genitals to the cranium
Of to teatime, I muttered, spitting out history like a terrible pill
I whip clouds until they scream birds
At the memorial service, I saw you wearing a tiara, lying in a body bag.
The embryos inside you rode around on conveyer belts, shrieking with glee
Love the title "In the Gynecological Museum"
poem to use as writing exercise on using footnotes creatively:
"A Treatise on the Affective Origins of Female Hysteria amp Schizophrenia ca.
poem to use as exercise / example on lists:
"The Coveted Remains of St, Kriemhilde"
poem to use as writing exercise on creative use of lists:
"A Diagram of Kriemhilde's Dollhouse"If Marilyn Manson was a slightly more sophisticated writer, I imagine this book represents what he'd turn out.
It's simply too much affectation, and I didn't buy it, It felt forced and faked, And, to me, it felt this was a book of one or two poems rewritten over and over again to fill itspages.
Totally up my alley,
Steaming up the shop windows with terrifying, titillating, sexy, sordid gore,
"O his productline of meaty heaving in snowpiles!' Absolutely incredible book of poetry, Probably one of the more ambitious and refreshing books I've read in a very long time, The aesthetic of the book, I'll call it the 'obscene surreal' because I'm not articulate enough to describe it better than that, is both inspirational and humbling in just how well crafted it is.
I often got the feeling of visiting several little words inside a much larger one multiple series of poems that can stand on there own but shine with absolute brilliance within the context of the entire book.
There is a theme of repetition of images, places, people but the poems themselves never felt repetitive or rehashed, something that I've found to be incredibly difficult to manage.
Action Books has a real gem here and I'm looking forward to reading Glenum's other work.
Habit of wanting to read first books first but read in the backlight of Maximum Gaga, Missed the rhythm/swagger of, the word invention, sense of surprise but found deranged topographies, pathological victorian interiors, big petrified landscapes"zinc seahorses, the pigiron clouds.
. . stepping out onto the museum of the sea, among the obsidian dolphins, . . the anemones littering / the micaencrusted shallows, " Discursive in a way, do wonder what a tiny self contained Glenum populated Wunderkammer house or city or compound would look like.
Also wonder how Glenum would define the Sublime as it appears in the end "Manifesto of the AntiReal.
" Real interesting document as it tries to situate poetics in contemporary landscape and differentiate project from the surreal.
Lots of conversations about the use/misuse/definitions of "surreal, " Time to cultivate alertness! The images in this are phenomenally stunning and disquieting, Poetry. Lara Glenum was raised in the gothic South, studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Virgina, and now teaches at the University of Georgia.
In this entirely unheimlich debut, she enters the stage of American poetry like a Fritz Lang glamorgirlcumanatomicalmodel.
Glenum recovers the political intensity and daring of the Surrealist project, The extraordinary precision of these poems is so stunning, we can't help but feel blinded by their visions: sockmonkeys, dollhouses, and a circus made of meat vibrate between the playful and the brutal so deftly, each line is a perfect shard of some fantastic planet, gloriously and sadly like our own.
As in Blake's apocalyptic images, the sky rolls itself up like a scrollbrilliant in its colors and infinite in its scope.
Glorious!D. A. Powell. Lara Glenum is a headlock on creative writing, splashing pieces of absurdity in some twisted grotesque mash up.
Her word usage blends so well with her sharp tongue,
A handful of favorites listed below
St, Liberata and the Alien Hordes
How to Discard the Life Youve Now Ruined
Aborted
Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick
Much has been said about this book already, in praise or otherwise.
I really enjoyed this, but given that my current interests have been shaped so much by Action Books this The Hounds of No's publisher, I wasn't surprised about that.
What I thought about as I read this was a that it feels at once contemporary and understandably anachronistic given the ways the contemporary political landscape re: patrilineal misogyny has transformed, and b how interesting textural play of the images are throughout.
It some ways, it's ornate and clean and shiny, but also very organic and pusfilled etc, Like a bunch of animals in a glass menagerie with oozing pustules, Unfortunately, this just wasn't quite my cup of tea, I admire the project but I can't get behind how she uses language, which is a deeply personal reaction amp unfair to Glenum.
I was outside on my deck indegree weather when I started reading this book, and it gave me the chills.
It is glamorous in that it cast its spell, Its gory as an original fairy tale, It is straight up feminist horror, which is great for a reader like me, I might even say its like Anne Carson, but more sinister, more graphic, And also its not. I have never read anything like this, I didnt love the Sock Monkey poems as much as I loved the rest of the book.
Otherwise, this is a five star collection for me, Lara Glenum is the author of four full length poetry collections: The Hounds of No, Maximum Gaga, Pop Corpse, and All Hopped Up On Fleshy Dumdums.
She is also the co editor of Gurlesque: the new grrly, grotesque, burlesque poetics, an anthology of contemporary womens poetry and visual art, and the upcoming digital second edition, Electric Gurlesque.
She has been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Prague and an NEA Translation Fellowship partner.
Shes currently an Associate Professor of English at LSU, where shes one of the directors of Delta Mouth, a national literary festival.
Lara Glenum is the author of four full length poetry collections: The Hounds of No, Maximum Gaga, Pop Corpse, and All Hopped Up On Fleshy Dumdums.
She is also the co editor of Gurlesque: the new grrly, grotesque, burlesque poetics, an anthology of contemporary womens poetry and visual art, and the upcoming digital second edition, Electric Gurlesque.
She has been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Prague and an NEA Translation Fellowship partner.
She's currently an Associate Professor of English at LSU, where she's one of the directors of Delta Mouth, a national literary festival.
sitelink.
Get It Now The Hounds Of No Envisioned By Lara Glenum Conveyed In Digital Copy
Lara Glenum