book review # 2

So the book I chose to review was The Bride of E by Mary Jo Bang. I found it just by walking through the browsing section of ODY and leafing through a couple different books of poems. It grabbed my attention because it was structured around the alphabet and kind of reminded me of some of the poets we have been reading during class. In particular I was reminded of Christian Bok's Eunoia, because the praise on the back of the cover claimed that through writing the book Bang discovered that each letter in the alphabet appears to have their own personality. Bok once spoke about he thought each of the vowels from his Eunoia had their own personality too, and the idea of letter and words has having their own identity and personality has really intrigued me this semester.

The entire text is structured around the alphabet, though some letters have more poems than others. Some titles are centered wholly around the letter, such as C is for Cher, while others such as In the Present and Probable Future just address ideas relatable with the letter P.
My favorite poem is actually the first one in the book. It is called ABC Plus E: Cosmic Aloneness is the Bride of Existence. It describes girls flirting with boys in bars, and seems to critique the strange way people cling to eachother and seek partners only because they are alone. I really liked how it was written, but I also liked a poem that critiqued love instead of praising it as so many poems seem to do. It seemed like a really fresh idea to me.

Though the overall structure of the book is obviously the alphabet, the book is also divided into two different parts. Part one seems to follow the sequence of the letters while Part two seems a little more interesting because while each poem is still attached to a specific letter and idea, they are not ordered in any particular way and only the letters G, J, S, L, and U are addressed. Overall , I really enjoyed the poems in this book and would definitely recommend it to others.