So Much Synth

by Brenda Shaughnessy

Overview

"Shaughnessy's particular genius . . . is utterly poetic, but essayistic in scope."—The New Yorker

"Brenda Shaughnessy's work is a good place to start for any passionate woman feeling daunted by poetry." —Cosmopolitan

"Shaughnessy's voice is smart, sexy, self-aware, hip . . . consistently wry, and ever savvy."—Harvard Review

Subversions of idiom and cliché punctuate Shaughnessy's fourth collection as she approaches middle age and revisits the memories, romances, and music of adolescence. So Much Synth is a brave and ferocious collection composed of equal parts femininity, pain, pleasure, and synthesizer. While Shaughnessy tenderly winces at her youthful excesses, we humbly catch glimpses of our own.

From "Never Ever":

Late is a synonym for dead which is a euphemism
for ever. Ever is a double-edged word,

at once itself and its own opposite: always and always some other time.

In the category of cleave, then. To cut and to cling to,
somewhat mournfully…

Brenda Shaughnessy was born in Okinawa, Japan and grew up in Southern California. She is the author of three books of poetry, including Human Dark with Sugar, winner of the James Laughlin Award and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Our Andromeda, which was a New York Times Book Review "100 Notable Books of 2013." She is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556594878
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	05/03/2016
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Brenda Shaughnessy: Brenda Shaughnessy was born in Okinawa, Japan and grew up in Southern California. She is the author of three books of poetry, including Human Dark with Sugar (Copper Canyon), winner of the James Laughlin Award and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Our Andromeda (Copper Canyon), which was a New York Times Book Review “100 Notable Books of 2013." Shaughnessy’s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Harper's, The Nation, The Rumpus, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son and daughter.

Table of Contents

I Have a Time Machine 3

I Edgehole

McQueen Is Dead. Long Live McQueen 7

Last Sleep, Best Sleep 14

Living Will 16

Artisanal 17

Wound 19

Dress Form 21

How It Is 23

II Crushing Likeness

Gay Pride Weekend, S.F., 1992 27

But I'm the Only One 28

To My Twenty-Six-Year-Old Self 31

In This Economy 32

Why I Stayed, 1997-2001 35

III So Much Synth

A Mix Tape: "Don't You (Forget About Me)" 43

A Mix Tape: The Hit Singularities 47

Is There Something I Should Know? 53

IV Secrets See Me Coming

Life's Work 83

Family Visit Vouchers 85

Red Tulips, Then Asphodel 86

Please Be Okay till Morning 87

Simone at Age Three, Late Summer 89

Never Ever 91

Acknowledgments 93

About the Author 95

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/18/2016
Shaughnessy (Our Andromeda) finds ever new ways to rend the heart in this biting and poignant anthropological study of girlhood and adolescence. The opening poem, “I Have a Time Machine,” sets the tone for the four-part collection, simmering in the obsessive nature of regrets and paths not taken. Her lush snapshots of youth portray triumph, anger, and agony, the poet unashamed to explore the abscesses of adolescence. “Dress Form,” a first-person confessional of self-esteem and body issues, pinpoints the rationale behind such self-inflicted wounds: “Like I learned: no dress could ever be// beautiful or best if it had me in it.” Shaughnessy uses language in a way that honors the power of imagery. This depiction of girlhood is not meant to serve as a unifier of personal experiences, but as the nuanced experience of growing up as a woman of color in a world dominated by white men. This is apparent in powerhouse poems such as “Gay Pride Weekend, S.F., 1992” and “Is There Something I Should Know?” The latter, a long poem that forms the collection’s fierce core, is a sweeping love letter to the poet’s young daughter as well as a powerful indictment of rape culture and the white and/or male gaze. “This is not a book anyone wants to read,” Shaughnessy writes, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. (May)

Publishers Weekly

05/15/2016
Replete with references to rock musicians and other cultural icons, this fourth collection (after Our Andromeda) from National Book Critics Circle finalist Shaughnessy intimately looks at growing up female. The 28-page "Is There Something I Should Know?" describes the confusion and vulnerability of a schoolgirl taught nothing about her changing body or sex. All in couplets, the poem offers engaging writing ("Before pubescence's acrid synthesis—those 700 days—/ I was a kid: all glossy grubby greatness, jumping through// sprinklers") but too often reads like a prose essay ("I wouldn't have to diet/ or worry about my clothes or how awkward my jokes were"). Compare this to her description of her body as an adult in "Wound": "As if to woo/ not to wow.// I didn't dazzle like I expected/ to. My body,// interracial & grumous." Several poems describe love affairs, including "Gay Pride Weekend, S.F., 1992" and "Why I Stayed, 1997–2001," which honestly depicts a violent lesbian relationship. Occasionally, language and topic meld into vivid writing, yet in many places these poems lack music and metaphor. Still, when topic, insight, and language meet, the sensuality of daily life is effectively captured. VERDICT An exciting if imperfect collection that celebrates love, gay pride, and womanhood: "Isn't blood a woman's ink?"[See Prepub Alert, 12/7/15.]—Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN

Library Journal