Wow, what James Knippen wrote in his shout-out to a a few of the best books of poetry he’s read in 2019:
“THE SUN A BLAZING ZERO, Shira Dentz: I am a sucker for poems that eschew traditional syntax for purposes of rhythmicality and general weirdness. But too often such poems, entertaining as they are, feel more gimmicky than authentic—the strangeness being the point rather than the strangeness serving the point. Dentz’s poems, though, are personal and feel wholly authentic—less Ron Silliman (strangeness constructed) and more Alfred Starr Hamilton or Michael Burkard (strangeness inherent). Their syntactical and tonal variety, and rhythmicality, work toward elucidating heartbreak and trauma rather than obscuring it. And what self-respecting poet wouldn’t succumb to language like this: “i want tomatoes rocks a whole story happened/flying across water a leaf falls birdacross/the sound sparrow tight welcoming//saw words the element sparrow of wind. it mat i like wate. breast botta moving./procks alone”?”