Book Thoughts #25

Furious Dusk

By David Campos

    There are a lot of books I feel like I've read already. I also feel like I've talked about this book on this blog before. So far, I haven't found a blog post about it yet. If you think you might know, feel free to say so.

    In the meantime-

    

    I feel the best way to talk about this book would be to reference the introduction to this poetry collection. It is written by Rhina P Espaillat, the final judge for the 2014 Andres Montoya Poetry Prize. Considering this is his first book, I'm sure Espaillat had a lot to say about it. 

    "From the opening of Part 1, a brutal hunting scene that plunges the reader into the book's pervasive violence... the reader witnesses a life spent trying to become what his own nature does not accept..." I will give some perspective here. A lot of the imagery in this part can be considered violent. On a different level, a lot of this imagery actually more palatable than it sounds. A lot of this stuff Campos writes about is actually fairly mundane for me. Then again, a lot of it is cultural. Some of the stuff that happens -mostly injuries or getting beat up by someone or something- is normal. But the words he uses are more visceral than most people would feel comfortable using to describe these situations. 

~

    Look, I'm going to be real. I'm writing this on 13 June. I had a whole idea of going through the introduction of the book and comparing it to my opinion on the collection. 

    At this point, my mind is too tired to do it (which I will explain in a later blog post). I will simply sum up my thoughts with this: It is a fantastic read. Definitely worth the ups and downs, especially when a lot of stuff starts happening in the middle stages of the collection. Pick it up and read it as soon as you feel comfortable doing so.