by Alex Lemon (Author)
California wildfires, the 2008 election, plastic surgery, Larry Craig, wildfires, Wal-Mart, and rampant commercialism--in Fancy Beasts, Alex Lemon takes on American media culture, the obscene foil for personal legacies of violence and violation.
The poems of this collection are a workout: vigorous and raw, frenetic and fearless. Yet they are also composed and controlled, pared down and sculpted, with a disarming narrative simplicity and directness. Even when dealing with toxic content--including the turning point in a life of abuse, in which the recovering victim/perpetrator puzzles through the paradigm of son-to-husband-to-father--Lemon's point of view is always genuine and trustworthy.
A frank, funny, and inimitably frenetic vision of post-millennial America, Fancy Beasts is a stunning achievement from Alex Lemon.