Fancy Beasts

"Few could blame Lemon, author of the harrowing illness memoir Happy, for displaying no small degree offatalism, even misanthropy, in his third collection of brash, ruefullyforthcoming poems ("I slept through the alarm/ & then the rest of mylife"). In the poet's unpredictable, hostile universe, the bodyitself breeds an internal and self-destructive violence ("an illegaldogfight/ Has been taking place / In the cage of your skull") whilereason batters against "the human/ Situation, stewing/ & bewildered/With insignificance." Bleak as it sounds, Lemon's poetrynevertheless bristles with gallows humor and an acute if oblique socialcriticism that belies the apparent despair, targeting apathy ("because noone you know is/ Dying in a war/ You decide to play/ Dead") and consumerism("The default setting is one/ More, please") with tactical wit. Amaster of negative empathy, Lemon spelunks through the brain's darkerconvolutions and clearly enjoys testing the reader's limits, if sometimesallowing his inventions to veer into cartoonish shenanigans (e.g.,"Beautification Campaign"). Verdict This book will likelyappeal most to twenty-somethings with an emo/hipster bent, but even olderreaders will be impressed by Lemon's calculated audacity."-Library Journal( starred review)

"Fullof raw energy, up-to-date in its slang and its jump cuts, effervescentwith the playfulness and sometimes the angers of youth, [Fancy Beasts] conveys a likable, outsizedpersonality. Like Tony Hoagland, Lemon is often self-conscious about thevolatilities his poems convey, about their almost giddy tonalities, buthe will not apologize for himself: adult life is a scary gift, a fasttrip, a set of close encounters with 'this fizzing pier life.'"-Publishers Weekly

"Reading Alex Lemon's poems is like listening in on the thoughts ofone the most imaginative minds you've ever encountered, a mind thatflits startlingly from image to image, narrative to narrative. Here, agang of boys bats rock-hard cupcakes through a neighbor's windows. Ora tattooed young man plots revenge outside a shopping mall. Or thehuman heart opens in the chest like an umbrella or floats like a breadbag in a pool. In the very best way, these poems are frenetic,vigorous, and sparkling. But Alex Lemon writes with more than mereflash, for they are also technically sophisticated, highly intelligentand, often, deeply moving, barely concealing beneath their pyrotechnicsan array of voices awash in yearning, sadness, loss, and love. Fancy Beasts is a terrific book by one of the best younger poets at work today." -Kevin Prufer

"Whenever I despair over the abuse of language in our culture orrecoil at the non-talk and silent mutterings we Fancy Beasts passbetween us as if it were digital money, I reach for a volume of poemsby Alex Lemon and am refreshed in the belief that art and poetry canimpart something beyond our manufactured desires and barely-concealedself-hatreds. Life cleverly and joyfully rages in Alex Lemon's poemsbecause everywhere in his explosive stanzas is the dry-boned convictionthat we are more than a collection of lonely selves seeking aestheticrelief from the great bewilderment of existence-that occasionally thatutter silence on the inside is really a dance party, operation: getdown. Alex Lemon is my saint, and ever since his debutcollection Mosquitoes, I've made sure to wake from the dream with his 'ashes in my mouth.'" -Major Jackson

"Once again,Alex Lemon dazzles us with his ability to slice straight through nerveand marrow on his way to the heart and mind of the matter. What I seelaid bare here are our American selves, skinned and stretched intohaunting souvenirs, or else 'comfortable,/Surrounded by all thecrap/They bought yesterday/At Wal-Mart.' These poems will cough inyour face and sing in your ear. They'll have your 'heart heaving...withjoy,' then-if you so require-they'll 'whip [you] real good.'" -Tracy K. Smith