Famous Americans (Yale Series of Younger Poets)
The Yale Series of Younger Poets is always worth investigating, and this year's winner is as surprising in its inventiveness as it is pleasing in its humor. Selected by W. S. Merwin, Goodman's hilarious debut collection contains a heady mix of pseudointellectual bombast, advertising hyperbole, and the sort of intuitively brilliant correlations found in folk art, such as the portrayal of Elvis as Jesus. Anyone who has ever worked with floundering students will find Goodman's takes on bad writing highly amusing, as are his forays into the minds of a piano-playing child and a Japanese caller struggling with English in a long answering-machine message. Form is content for Goodman, whether it's a letter, a giddily absurd report, strange and mangled voice-over commentary on such ludicrous topics as Einstein's brain and Napoleon's penis, ridiculous yet vaguely familiar movie scenarios, and an account of an underwater shoot-out at the OK Coral involving Billy the Squid. Smart, wily, and agile, Goodman achieves a Charles Ives-effect in this sweet and clever sampling of pop culture in all its goofiness and longing.Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.