Plans for May

As a heads up, starting some time in May, roughly coinciding with the end of the school year, I plan to be taking this blog in a slightly different direction in the sense that I will be reviewing specific books of Asian-American poetry, probably at a rate of several books per week, though it is too early to tell.

The upcoming "reviews" -- I don't know if I would necessarily call them "reviews." I've got problems with "reviews" that portray themselves as objective assessments of the poetry, when really it is the subjectiveness of the reviewer that should be foregrounded or at least duly acknowledged. I envision an "ideal" review of a book of poetry as an artistic, literary creation in and of itself. More essentially, I think that there should be more reviews of poetry that aspire to be fun, humorous, and entertaining, and that will be my own aspiration. I mean, I'm a busy guy, an average joe, I'd like a little more pizzazz in my book reviews of poetry as opposed to paragraphs that ramble on and on with large words, informative little factoids, and the overwhelming air of a well-versed reviewer who seems just above everyone else intellectually and knowledge-wise. Now I definitely think that there should be room for that type of review out there, and personally, I am entertained, in a literary sense, by lovely reviews like Christine Hume's of Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge's Nest: http://www.constantcritic.com/Christine_Hume.html But there should be more of the "popular" kind as well, and I'm still thinking over what the shape of the "popular" kind should be.

In the meantime, there will be more posts on Asian-American poetry as usual. Just thought I'd share my plans.