Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Milk & Filth

Milk & Filth

Giménez Smith, Carmen

Paperback

Series: Camino del Sol

General Poetry

ISBN10: 0816521166
ISBN13: 9780816521166
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: Oct 10 2013
Pages: 80
Weight: 0.25
Height: 0.20 Width: 5.80 Depth: 8.80
Language: English
Awards: National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Adding to the Latina tradition, Carmen Giménez Smith, politically aware and feminist-oriented, focuses on general cultural references rather than a sentimental personal narrative. She speaks of sexual politics and family in a fierce, determined tone voracious in its opinions about freedom and responsibility.

The author engages in mythology and art history, musically wooing the reader with texture and voice. As she references such disparate cultural figures as filmmaker Lars Von Trier, Annie from the film Annie Get Your Gun, Nabokov's Lolita, Facebook entries and Greek gods, they appear as part of the poet's cultural critique.

Phrases such as the caustic domain of urchins and the gelatin shiver of tea's surface take the poems from lyrical images to comic humor to angry, intense commentary. On writing about downgrading into human, she says, Then what? Amorality, osteoporosis and not even a marble estuary for the ages.

Giménez Smith's poetic arsenal includes rapier-sharp wordplay mixed with humor, at times self-deprecating, at others an ironic comment on the postmodern world, all interwoven with imaginative language of unexpected force and surreal beauty. Revealing a long view of gender issues and civil rights, the author presents a clever, comic perspective. Her poems take the reader to unusual places as she uses rhythm, images, and emotion to reveal the narrator's personality. Deftly blending a variety of tones and styles, Giménez Smith's poems offer a daring and evocative look at deep cultural issues.

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