Reflections on Espionage

John Hollander

You never really know what you're going to get from a John Hollander book of poetry. In this case, you get a title that says "satire," or puts you in mind of the Power Puff Girls or some like. But once you've flipped open the first page, what you find is anything but; Hollander takes you on a trip through the obsessive mind of a spy (code named, obviously, Cupcake), through nine moths of his reports both to superiors and colleagues. The effect is quite startling, and wonderful.

There are some technical problems with the poetry, mostly in the line breaks, which are inconsistent and often irrational; the notes section (read it, for it's actually a part of the work, rather than being a real notes section) mentions in passing that the whole thing is actually rhythmic blank verse. True most of the time, but breaks in various places, leading one to believe perhaps more care could have been taken with the line breaks overall without sacrificing any of the readability herein.

That is, however, something of a minor quibble in a work of this magnitude. Another definite winner from john Hollander, well worth seeking out.