Famous Americans

by Loren Goodman

Book Overview

This year's winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Loren Goodman's Famous Americans. Hilarious, eclectic, and bizarre, this collection takes the reader on a rollercoaster of a ride through the absurdities of American pop culture. Employing a variety of forms (from epistolary to script to interview and beyond), this work proves to be as much about exploring frameworks as it is about examining the lives of famous and not-so-famous...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300100035
• ISBN13: 9780300100037
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Invite Don Rickles

This is a fantastic book of poetry, relentlessly goofy and original. Tired of the angst, the pretentiousness, the studiously casual stuff that passes for poetry these days? Check this book out. You will not be disappointed. If only more books like this won the major awards.

Cat Therapist

Reading this book is like being strapped to the nose of a rocket as it leaves the planet's surface. Just try to close your eyes--the wind will pin your lids back. Goodman's language is endlessly surprising even as he presents film scenarios, fragments of high school history, conversations, etc., that we expect we've seen or heard before. But we haven't. Not like this. Goodman is no mere poet, he's a cat therapist. _Famous Americans_ is more than comic poetry. The cumulative effect of the poems is extraordinary. By the time you get to "The Prize" or "Friendship," you realize that the poems don't just make you laugh (provided you have a heartbeat), but show you a new variety of compassion. What an accomplishment!

I am Yeast, a great poet

Lyn Heijinian meets Billy Collins, in precise nexus where neither sucks. This is really stunning stuff, the kind of thing you wish you wrote because it was clearly the most fun someone's had writing a poem for a long, long time.

something out of the ordinary: humorous poetry

the booklist review above is pretty accurate, but i thought i'd add my 2 cents. this collection is quite good, although it should be noted that humorous doesn't necessarily mean light. goodman has a knack for unlikely juxtapositions and clearly loves playing with language in the form of non sequiturs and malapropisms. at their best, as in "yeast" which is a play on the poet yeats and in "touchdown to college!" which starts off as a badly spelled essay and which morphs unexpectedly into beautiful poetry, the poems' results are strangely moving. a little too often his poetry is simply gimmicky, as in the series of movie castlists which feature "max von sydow" in a slew of roles, or the life of benjamin franklin, both of which quickly become rather predictable. a quick read for some good laughs and chuckles, as well some moments of emotional reaction.