Ooga-Booga: Poems

By Frederick Seidel

Book Overview

From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror, rage, and desire. Here I am, not a practical man, But clear-eyed in my contact lenses, Following no doubt a slightly different line than the others, Seeking sexual pleasure above all else, Despairing of art and of life, Seeking protection from death by seeking it On a racebike, finding release and belief on two wheels . . . --from "The Death of the Shah" The poems in Ooga-Booga are about a youthful slave owner and his aging slave, and both are the same man. This is the tenderest, most savage collection yet from "the most frightening American poet ever" (Calvin Bedient, Boston Review ).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374226555
• ISBN13: 9780374226558
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 0.6" x 5.9"

Customer Reviews

Just stupendous

I'd been unsuccessful in finding a poet who inhabited my insane urban world; many carried the musty odor of academe, and/or lived in rural areas fomenting images of cows and trees, or in any case couldn't re-invent language to be sufficiently intense, or graphic, or vivid to address our existence. Ashbury and Muldoon were too difficult. Strand was too bland. Greger was only occasionally powerful. Komunyakaa came close but could never quite close the sale. Then I happened on a review of "Ooga-Booga." And bought it. Bingo! Why are there only two reviews here? Are Americans so indifferent to poetry, or so sentimentalized as not to recognize the real thing when it slaps them in the face? I'm unsure exactly where Seidel should be placed in the pantheon: whether he has the gravitas of Yeats or the formal dazzle of ee cummings; perhaps he's just a bit shy of greatness, a la Auden. But whether these poems become classics or whether their big punch will fizzle some with age, they certainly are knockouts now. (Either "The Bush Administration" or "Barbados" would alone have been worth the price of admission) Seidel is the poet for our times: caustic wit, a twistiness of metaphor that can leave you gasping, irreverence, playfulness, a refusal to be bound by the pompous mantle of Literature, a complex understanding of relations between our inner and outer worlds, and--not least--a sense of moral outrage. "The Cosmos Trilogy" is great too. Mr. Seidel: stay healthy, keep writing! God knows you're a rare beast.

Good strong stuff

Seidel has no shame, as he shouldn't. No one is spared in this book--politicians, minorities, women, disease patients and happy people are all subject to Seidel's wicked treatment, which is his genius. Seidel is dour and curmudgeonly. Reading a Seidel poem is like hurtling over a cascade of brutal, brilliantly clear images. Whether by their beauty or their despair, each one manages to be frightening. The first reading of a Seidel poem is bound to provoke an intense emotional/visceral response, even among casual readers, while subsequent readings will reveal purebred poetic craft. His honesty insults you, me, and everyone else; anything less would insult art.

Wisdom With A Slice Of Irreverance

I came at this book from an unusual perspective. I'm a motorcycle-enthusiast, not a poetry connoisseur, and I heard about the author from a riding-buddy. (He, I and the author all live on Long Island and ride motorcycles.) I'm not the typical consumer of a book of poetry and I approached this one with some apprehension. That dissolved almost immediately, however, when I got into the writing. It is easily-accessible and hugely entertaining. I found myself enjoying the time spent with a seasoned individual whose unique perspective is not only sagacious but fun. I never expected poetry to tackle subjects of real interest to me (e.g., sex) but this book does. Both the topics and the author's exploration of them amused and enlightened me. Chances are you'll enjoy it, too.