Bound is one of the shortest books I have probably ever read. The longest poem is several pages long, but it is just a bunch of blacked out text. It is called (black box). I cannot put the symbol here as it is literally the black box/line that is used to block out wording in important documents. I am assuming this is the real speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I will call this poem “IPMBN” just to make it easier. If this is the real speech given by the Prime Minister before the joint session of congress on March 3, 2015 it must have been a humdinger, because what is left is inflammatory, nonsense, odd wording and makes no sense.
“IPMBN” is a representation of Claire Schwartz all the way. While the other poems are original (which makes me wonder if she just uses the idea of the speech as her theme and created something around that to represent her political feelings) they are just as odd and sometimes nonsensical as “IPMBN”. Schwartz tries to portray sexuality, love, life, religion and politics crammed into short poems. The language seems beautiful to the eye, but to the minds ear there is something missing during first read.
And there is the real issue. Bound is not a book that you can sit and read in one sitting. Or if you do, you should go back for multiple readings. I am assuming that being the winner of the 2016 Button Poetry Prize is not a large enough award for the Bingo, but it does show that people are paying attention to her and she is getting recognized for her hard work and, yes, talent. Just because she did not speak to me this time (though I do have two post-it-notes and a couple underlined pieces of the poem) who knows who she will speak to. Because she does speak and speaks well. And who knows if she will speak to me next time I pick Bound or other work by her.
Interesting! It’s been a long time since I picked up a book of poetry, but this sounds intriguing. I’ll have to find it and take my time going through it.
Of course Amazon has it, but you can go through Independent Bookstores and Button Poetry, too. But really take your time reading. It’s great, but just not easy. As anything from Button Poetry is (it’s great just really not easy!)