Wow, what a beautiful wild ride! From the depths of the ocean to the stars, from the ethereal corners of memory to the tactile, sweat-soaked sheets of passion. Humor and irony, side by side with sadness and joy. Such a rich and varied collection of poetry. It is Aimee Nezhukumatathil's intention to send us on a treasure hunt to discover or revisit some of the paintings, myths, people places and songs that inspired these diverse and varied poems. From Prince's musical number with the Muppets to Salvador Dali to Jakob de Wit I looked up the inspirations and subjects of a lot of the poems. I definitely appreciated and reacted to the subtle humor that was tinged with a little dark sarcasm in a few of the poems, like the "reviews" on the Taj Majal and The Great Wall; poems written as a commentary on the ridiculously stupid stuff people write sometimes, with words taken from actual reviews.

Some of my favorites were the Niagara Falls daredevils, all beautifully, and sometimes humorously, captured within the poems. I must admit my two favorites of the four, were of the two that did not make it: 2. Charles Stephens, The Demon Barber of Bedminster (1920) (24),

"The right arm:

only thing

happy

to be found.

It even waved

a little.

The poem is actually shaped like an arm floating in the water. I read that because of a fatal flaw in his barrel design the only thing they ever found was his right arm floating at the base of the falls, which was subsequently interred in a mausoleum. His barrel design, which included an anvil bound to his feet (?!), actually won him a Darwin Award. The humor in those few lines so captured the sentiment of this stunt, that it made me laugh out loud.

The other one I liked that is not so funny is "3. George Strathakis (1930)" (25), who actually took his pet turtle with him in the barrel. He survived the Falls but suffocated to death when the barrel was caught beneath the Fall for 22 hours,

"There are white walls you can climb over and white walls you cannot escape,
even if you dig underneath...
I wait for you to open my barrel...
Underneath the falls,
I may find buried vats of bog butter. I will listen to it sweeten
into soap. I will listen for you. My turtle waits. I listen. I wait."

This poem so beautifully dares to imagine a man, in a self-imposed death chamber of his own creation, dying at the hands of chance with the taste of victory on his lips. The turtle survived.
The poem on Steven Trotter written in two columns, one for each successful ride over the Falls, can actually be read as one poem, or two as well.

"Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth" has such wonderful assonance at the end of each line and within each line are wonderfully unique and spot on pairings parallel to the title. This was one of my favorites just based on craft and wordplay alone.

The ones I would love to get other people's view on, are the ones about Psyche, Cupid and Venus. I had to refresh my memory of the myth and I'm not an expert in Greek mythology, however, I was fascinated by the reimagining of the myth where Psyche not only lives but thrives among abundance in a mansion. The problem is she seems to be alone, sad, missing her family, and thinking she is eating her last meal. I was not sure how to read this as the collection itself is very heteronormative in its content. If I use that as a reference point on reading this one, than I would think that the poet sees being without a man as lonely and unhappy, and perhaps not "normal," which of course is her prerogative. This made me think of a news story I saw recently about a village in northern Kenya where men are not allowed to live. The women go outside the village to date but raise their children as a community. The women interviewed seemed pretty happy and the community thrives, managing its resources quite well. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/umoja-community-kenya-women-rule-men-banned-victims-of-abuse-heal/
All and all I thought the imagery was intense and beautiful, taking us back to the magical ocean from where we emerged so long ago.