Ten-Headed Alien Reviewed on blue riband

I was pleasantly surprised to see a recent review for Ten-Headed Alien on the blue riband website this past weekend. The book came out in spring of 2018, which is two whole “cycles” of poetry books that reviewers could have looked at. I’m grateful to John Nyman who took the time to engage with the book in a way which I hoped some readers might (which shouldn’t matter, as ultimately, intentions are merely half of the contract between reader and writer, right?).

Screenshot from http://www.briband.com/new-blog (August 20, 2019)

I’d obviously encourage you to read the whole review (as John Nyman really did take the time, and surprised me with the poems he discussed), but here are some highlights from the review:

“…when we respond positively to a poem, we often feel that it resonates with us, as if it’s looped us into a vibrational waveform (or an electric shock) running through our shared reality. it’s much less common, i think, to find ourselves thoroughly within a poem’s world, engulfed by it like jonah by the whale (or the Millennium Falcon by that giant space slug from The Empire Strikes Back). but that’s exactly what david james brock’s Ten-Headed Alien does: it swallows you whole. equal parts enviro-existentialism, great sci-fi, ridiculous sci-fi, and acid grunge——brock’s set pieces are variously bleak, invigorating, relatable and bizarre.”

“…more than just story——pictures, they’re also thought-pictures, feeling-pictures, dream-pictures. pictures not just of non-realities, but of non-realities distorted by desire and desperation. more often than not, brock’s poems distort space and time.”

michael zarathus-cook’s blue riband website is a revelation to me. It’s ethos to “celebrate good music, films, books and other such good blue things” is obviously exciting to me as is the “desire to capture the innumerable shades and brilliant colours that flash to mind when joy is instead the currency of transaction.”

My decent review notwithstanding, I am a fan of both the mandate and the articles/reviews I’ve seen thus far.

I look forward to seeing more of what blue riband gets up to. Check it out.