Tag: Transgressive

Book Reviews, Non-fiction, Short Stories

Transgressive poetry in Yuri Kageyama’s the New and Selected Yuri (2011)

t. michael

Why hadn’t I heard of Yuri Kageyama before? She’s been quietly publishing poetry, essays, and short stories for over 30 years. Her style ranges between transgressive and journalistic, channeling similar frustrations as writers like Kathy Acker, but with a style devoid of flourish or absurdity. She’s published in journals and magazines, and had her one and only poetry collection, Peeling, published by her close friend and fellow author, Ishmael Reed, in 1988. The New and Selected Yuri, published in 2011, contains 41 short works of poetry and prose dating from 1978 to 2011. It contains short stories, essays, anecdotes, conversations, cultural explanations, and a wealth of poems.

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Book Reviews, Novels

blood and guts in high school blood and guts in high school blood and guts in high school blood and guts in high school blo

t. michael

Blood and Guts in High School‘s (BAGIHS) narrative is a collage of drama, rough pornographic illustrations, dream geographies, angst- and art-fueled journal entries, a book report reinterpreting (and deconstructing) the Scarlet Letter (1850), language-learning exercises, poetry, &c. Whatever the format — whatever the readability — BAGIHS seems to follow young Janey’s short-lived maturation and self-education in a world that offers her and her sort nothing but condescending, appreciative inequality.

I tend to have trouble with transgressive fiction, but Acker’s work is something special. She was brilliant — really had a knack for both tearing apart literary canon and social injustices; she was delightfully odd; and she was really, really, justifiably grumpy.

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