REVIEW: An Electric Sheep Jumps to Greener Pasture – Tyler Atwood (University of Hell Press)

ElectricSheep

 

the truth was a mirror the church led me to believe I

discovered the impossibility of finding my reflection in 

the pieces when it broke a single-parent household I ran 

my fingers through the shards of glass probing the edges 

for where they once fit together finding only the 

weakness of my own skin

An introspective, dynamic collection with more layers than human skin and an onion on top of baklava, Aelectric sheep jumps to greener pasture by Tyler Atwood is exactly what I look for in a book of poetry. Life laid bare, drug filled honesty, no nonsense humanity, and the open side of themselves left for the reader to see and interpret in their own way, this is a book to be bargained with.

She angry-made the bed after waking to me writing 

her a poem. She told me she would rather not be 

the pool I admire my own reflection in. That no one 

wants to be an object, even of affection. It did not 

really happen this way, but this makes a better story

A place where art and image collide on every page. From the actual artistic images, to their thick scab-painted words, this is well intended and successful effort. With this book I found myself taking a break to write poems of my own. This book made my brain want to work.  It motivated me like all good art should.

Now that I have read the book a few times, the layers become clearer and clearer, more full. Every poem can be dissected and rethought from a dozen angles. There is no clear message, but that is the ultimate point I took from the book.That life is random and pointless sometimes, but you have to find your own interpretations of that randomness.Tyler finds the beauty in that simple idea in several beautifully complicated ways. Life is full of disease and dis-ease, but there is joy in that too. Those ideas are on full display here.

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