this also just in, but not recently...

I've had Dark Brandon by Brandon Downing (Faux Press 2005) for some months but haven't had the opportunity to dig into it till recently. it is both dense and frisky. it apparently derives (somehow) from movies and tv, that seems to be his palette. there's a glancing energy of pop culture to his work, but I wouldn't want to brand (oop) his work with that sensibility too eagerly. this is not flippant writing, tho it can be wacky. I like the intersection of voices, in the way of several radio stations meeting. Downing, I would say, is receptive. also quite funny. I haven't heard Downing read but I can hear these poems performed. I guess I could scrape up the word performative at this time. by which I mean, differing timbres and tones. these are just glancing, off the top of my head notes. Downing's previous book, The Shirt Weapon (Germ Monographs 2002), seems a looser affair. perhaps not as dark as this one. that comment maybe owes to one notes disruptions in speech, syntactical twists and ellipsis. to behonest, I found the work 'difficult' (which I guess is what I mean by dense). a matter of calibrating to the lightness of his touch and quickness of his moves. also that I'm not the piercingest reader. this is real and different work that I want to know better.