I was window shopping on Amazon the other day when this chapbook came up in my Books You May Like feed. The title captured my attention because it’s the same type of fuckery that I would engage in.
I read some of the reviews, which were a glorious display of shit-posting that captured my warped little heart, so I decided to buy it.
Book Details
So this chapbook is rather large – 105 pages – and was self-published on Amazon’s KDP earlier this year. It’s classified as Limericks and Humorous Verse, Internet and Social Media Humor, as well as Puns and Wordplay. The author’s name is Lily Luverton – an appropriate porn star-esque pen name, appropriate for the content inside. Sits approximately 6 x 9 inches, with a matte pink cover and passable quality paper on the inside. The font choice sucks, I’ll be honest. I folded the front cover back while reading and was pretty surprised at the fact that the glued spine didn’t shit the bed and rip off. Huzzah!
Content
This is an adult chapbook; definitely not meant for those under the age of 18. It consists entirely of sex and shit humor – which is my bag, entirely, but may not be yours. If not, steer clear. The poems are all very short – shorter than most micro poetry – so it makes for a quick read.
Review
When I opened the book, I immediately went to the Table of Contents and found this little gem which made me cackle like a fucking lunatic.
After seeing this, I was actually pretty excited to break into the rest of the book, thinking it was going to be right up my alley. Like I said above, the poems are very short – shorter than most micro poetry – so it made for an incredibly quick read.
The three pages are glorious! The poems are constructed in a way that lulls you into safety, and then the last line is so unexpected you can’t help but laugh. It’s authentic in that it’s plain to see that there was some effort made when constructing the poems, that there is a point in creating them the way they were created.
The next five pages are meh. The intentionality that is present in the first three pages begins to ebb, rather quickly, and everything turns to shit. The next 100 or so pages is filler; packed with writing that tries too hard to be funny, shocking, and disgusting. You can feel the author straining to meet these markers, and it stops being authentic or funny.
I’m pretty well aware that the writer’s intention is to make it a shitty book of poetry (as the title implies) but the sad fact is this: it could have been something REALLY good and honestly funny. And it isn’t. And I am so incredibly sad over that because I thought I’d found my literary soul mate. Lily, Lily, why did you let me down?
Is it worth the $12 and shipping time? Nah.
Poems that Suck 