Parts of Speech

Poetry. PARTS OF SPEECH ventriloquizes even as it amputates cliches and idiomatic expressions, where the cumulative effect is more exhilarating than terrifying, due in part to this book’s underlying architectonics. Overheard conversations, radio broadcasts, film titles, allusions and elisions swirl about one another. Enjambments snowball into a torrent of clauses, refusing disambiguation. Blues and jazz repetition and refrain slide into monomania. Schlesinger’s darkly humorous collage of Americana evokes an other-reflexive strategy and an obtuse coherence: ‘Art is serious // Enough already / There is no point / In taking it / Too seriously / Seriously.’–Tyrone Williams

A deadpan ode to American speech, the poems in this collection take fresh bites out of Capitalism’s hide. PARTS OF SPEECH defines a generation’s disillusionment in a post-Occupy world.–Brenda Coultas