Final Girl

Daphne Gottlieb

During a rather heated discussion on the merits of slam poetry, I had Gottlieb recommended to me as one of those who's capable of still taking the "poetry" half of "performance poetry" into account. Needless to say, I dug this up posthaste and gave it a go. And in deference to my worthy foil in that discussion, he's right... some of the time.

Now, I grant you, it's been quite a while since I've been a regular member of the inner circle of the slam/performance poetry scene anywhere, but I've been a sporadic attendee ever since. I stopped being a regular because the performance started being more important then the poetry, to the point where the poetry was excluded, and the vast majority of the work (including the winner of every slam I've been to since 1993) became political or social screed chopped up into little lines to make it look poetic. And there are times when Daphne Gottlieb does this. But there are also times when she reveals an excellent eye for detail, and there are pieces in this book that shine.

"When you leave for the evening-- card games, parties, office things-- it is your wife's closet I go to first. She's got great taste in shoes...." ("The Babysitter")

"When he yells Get on your back! Call me Lord! Call me Master!

I laugh so hard I drop my banana." ("In a Name")

Interlaced with the poems are short prose pieces of various levels of effectiveness, some exceptionally well-crafted, some not so much. Still, they're all above average, and definitely worth checking out. The oddest pieces here are not quite poetry and not quite prose, and seem to be written for a number of voices; read in such a way, they have an interest to them; read as single pieces, they're incomprehensible. I leave it to the reader to decide.

One to check out, but too much of a rollercoaster to be a solid recommend.