Now, isn't that fun? Mary Jo Bang's first collection, the impeccably titled Apology for Want, was selected as a first-book-award winner in 1996. The poems in that book contain a dark power, sturdily placed as they are in the known, observable, desperate world poets and readers of poetry love to inhabit. In 2001, two new volumes were published -- a feat even the prolific Carl Phillips, Bang's colleague at Washington University, hasn't pulled off yet -- The Downstream Extremity of the Isle of Swans and Louise in Love. In these books, Bang springs from the common lyric grievances into a poetry that is both exhilarating and perplexing: exhilarating in the way language can be in a craftsperson's hands, perplexing in the way dreams are. Louise is a particularly jazzy work that includes a complete dramatis personae we follow through their dalliances. "Love, love, love, love, love, love, love --/a hive hum ongoing in the hear ear./How could that be a thing of pure pleasure?"
The myth that the French are great lovers was built on the divinely sordid works of these men and women. And nowhere can you find as many great examples of the classic Dirty French Novel as you will in the front window of Subterranean Books. That's right: As you peruse that copy of Miracle of The Rose (dude, prison sex is hot!), passersby can clearly see you and what you are. Even better, Subterranean will gladly order any of the tomes missing from your collection, so you need not go without the beautiful and brutal Chants of Maldoror just because it's not in stock. Old Mr. Comstock would roll over in his grave at the thought of these classics' being freely available despite all his efforts, but his turgid member keeps him propped sideways in his coffin, like a bike on a kickstand -- which is just the sort of thing the Comte de Lautréamont wanted you to think about when he wrote Maldoror, which is why you should read it.
The myth that the French are great lovers was built on the divinely sordid works of these men and women. And nowhere can you find as many great examples of the classic Dirty French Novel as you will in the front window of Subterranean Books. That's right: As you peruse that copy of Miracle of The Rose (dude, prison sex is hot!), passersby can clearly see you and what you are. Even better, Subterranean will gladly order any of the tomes missing from your collection, so you need not go without the beautiful and brutal Chants of Maldoror just because it's not in stock. Old Mr. Comstock would roll over in his grave at the thought of these classics' being freely available despite all his efforts, but his turgid member keeps him propped sideways in his coffin, like a bike on a kickstand -- which is just the sort of thing the Comte de Lautréamont wanted you to think about when he wrote Maldoror, which is why you should read it.