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Lucifer At The Starlite: Poems (2009)

by Kim Addonizio(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0393068528 (ISBN13: 9780393068528)

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

review 1: In this 2009 volume of poetry, Addonizio shows off her many skills.She has spunky rhythms and powerful similes to go with her wide rangeof topics. Her topics include her mother, sex, lost loves, Lucifer, ofcourse, and God. Energetic poems that deal with the subject in a verydirect and honest, raw way. I very much enjoyed this collection. Her"God Ode" is a skeptic's praise song and shows her considerable talents.
review 2: Dances with Devils Lucifer at the Starlite by Kim Addonizio. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2009.If one is looking for a book of marshmallow happy ending poems, you should keep looking. However if you are interested in a collection of raw unpolished poems; Kim Addonizio’s Lucifer at the Starlite is an excellent choice. Addonizio approaches... more both personal and political subjects with a darkened perspective. The view is that of evil being an influential and controlling force in our lives. The title of the book correlates to her poem “Lucifer at the Starlite” in which the devil is put in command of life on earth. Some readers might find the poems to be too depressing in nature, like “The Burning,” in which the author communicates their bitterness towards their brother, “And I hate him/ as I always have/ with great purity of feeling.” But without a doubt Addonizio writes with a great level of intimacy, following a pursuit for her own identity; like in “My Heart.” “My Heart” relates various images to the character of her heart; “That phone booth with the receiver ripped out. / That dressing room in the fetish boutique.” Kim uses no filter in finding herself through a junkyard of past lovers and family problems; she often uses socially tabooed words like “porn”, “blow job” and “fuck.” The uses of such references display the author as being troubled and relatable. Kim openly voices troubling disturbances that many readers face. In her poem “God Ode” she declares her resentment towards God for Him allowing evil to persist; “Praise having a body to be unhappy in, suffering the slings and staring unbelieving at the arrows. In the lines of her poems, Addonizio displays both skill and knowledge of structure and technique. She uses a multitude of forms from the block prose of “Hansel” to the witty spaced triplets of “Sui.” Kim keeps things flowing softly with the use of internal rhyme and slant rhymes, enjambments and caesuras. She also creates original and specific images such as “You were the two insect parts per million allowed in peanut butter” and “clean sweat and grapefruit.” However I was slightly disappointed with the repetition of a few images, of which being “a dog,” the succession of this image gave the impression that I was reading a previous poem over again. Kim uses some social references such as “Chet Baker” and “Celexa” that might cause certain readers to lose connection to the piece if they do not have a previous understanding. Other references like that of “Merrily” and “Snow White: The Huntsman’s Story” were extremely entertaining. They provided a new twist on tradition stories graphically insisting “When I took the lung and liver/ they were still warm. I brought them/ bloody in a bag to the queen.”Overall Kim Addonizio is a deeply gifted writer, who is able to convey internal frustrations with sensuality and imagination. You will find a compassion for her though her ponderings and occasional bitter rant. By viewing the world with Lucifer at the Starlite, one might be able to find incredible wisdom; contrasting the darkness of a world with its light. less

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