on "This Feels Like Normal"

step 1: get a free chapbook. 

step 2: read it over reheated ziti with marinara sauce. 

step 3: be grateful you're not still dating.



This Feels Like Normal is a little chappy by brandon scott gorrell, matthew savoca and colin bassett. it came in the mail this afternoon and i devoured the surprise poetry treat over lunch. i'd completely forgotten about the email i sent requesting a copy. 

unexpected poetry in the mail is always a delight.

even better, i liked it. i didn't love it, but i did like it.

brandon, matthew and colin are what i expect from boys who write poetry. boys who write poetry are analytical, self-defacing/praising, sad, unmetered and they make funny faces at the girls they love--girls they may or may not have told they love them.

there were moments, over coffee and fruit salad, where sincerity crept up out of the murky commentary on emotions as revealed through poems. the boys were center stage though. and the poetry proclaimed itself poetry despite any form or poetic tendencies to denote it, rather, distinguish it from angsty note-book scribbles or never-sent love-notes.

so the chap doesn't sound like it's done much really. but as i turned the last page, hoping for that "i love you too" to set me free, to love them poet-e-poet, there was no last page to turn to. i have been left wanting more. much like a girl might--a girl dating a boy poet.

i guess that's just what they do.

three out of three
get four out of five.