Bodys Poems

This stunningly strange debut book of poetry, a sequence of oddly off-kilter prose poems, reads like Mad Libs on acid and will stick to the inside of the skull. The untitled poems occupy only half a page, deceptively thick paragraphs that flirt with such licentious topics as cuddle parties, webcam action, and underwater masturbation. This abundance of sexual undertones, overtones, interludes, and innuendos may seem to necessitate blush-colored pixelation or a dark censor bar, even if it's not always clear what exactly is being redacted. A case in point: The eyes snacked easily, opening to the group's ball antics. Running congruent with the defamiliarizing subject matter is a wary vein that touches on questions of consent, body image, and eating disorders. Throughout, anatomy and objects attain agency, creating a sense of unsettling enchantment. Finally, Roveto adds an anxious humor that counterbalances the weight: The starched pillow, a kind of weirdo, begged only for recognition from a breath mint. A refreshing, disarming collection, which includes the single most exquisite appearance of jeggings (leggings resembling jeans) in American poetry to date.--Báez, Diego Copyright 2016 Booklist

In this inventive and arrestingly funny debut, Roveto unequivocally makes the familiar strange as she places human bodies in a seemingly endless array of contexts to produce striking and even disturbing juxtapositions. She proves to be a master of the overlay. In these untitled prose poems, Roveto presents familiar settings or propositions-such as going on a date, using a computer, or lying on a hospital bed-that she then double exposes in the manner of a photograph: "It began as they moved into the ward, moved out of the would. He made a sound with her, balling up a cheese, putting their bodies into an incredible organization of one lump." Roveto takes a democratic stance on which body parts and images deserve attention, and unexpected intrusions of the bizarre help shape a surreal and emotionally charged space where eating, sex, and even surgical dissection can overlap. "I wear my buckle to the side so that no one looks at my crotch, she chained to me. I looked at her crotch," Roveto writes. She delivers jolts of sexually electric language and apt critiques of social media: "Connection had grown into a dumb incest television." Through imaginative poems linked by voice and theme, Roveto takes the spectacle of modern consumption and flips it all upside-down. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Mom warned, Invest in everything together. She couldn't retire until I reproduced her efforts. Every evening Brother visited in a family way. I was taught the value of commodity from this action. A gallery performance that considered many corpse painters at once. The traces of workers came after Brothering. She washed his underpants or how seams draw something out of another. That was not a sentence, but a text in a frame. One question they snacked was, Could your body next time supply napkin and platelets? It was a show-off process. The speed at which I ruined coherence increased because the investor met with the dollars of an other's patience. One example of being untitled is someone willing to tell you their object choice is about you playing yourself in relation to them as a face.   Excerpted from Bodys by Vanessa Roveto All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.