Chelsea Minnis’s 2009 poetry collection, Poemland (Wave Books), took the world by storm. With its distinctive pink cover, prominently barcode design, and slightly wider spine than is usually found on poetry collections, it felt like a must-have book. And the writing lives up to the hype.
The marketing copy calls it a fearless and uproarious litany of contentions and revelations on poetry and the poetic mind, continuing the charge against the sacred in contemporary poetry. Poemland alternates brilliantly between the deadpan, the spectacular, and the outrageous.
Here’s just a short excerpt.
When I read poems I don't like them...
But I like them like pouf-roses...
I like them like gilt saws...
And I like them like dark brown ram shearling!...
To enchant someone meaninglessly...
Is like getting insulted and kissed by your riding instructor...