Reviews - June 2013

Bordering on madness

A review of Bhanu Kapil's 'Schizophrene'

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), defines schizophrenia as “a disorder that lasts for at least six months and includes at least one month of active-phase symptoms (i.e., two [or more] of the following: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, negative symptoms).”[1]

A poetics of appropriation

A review of William Fuller's 'Hallucination'

Like the obscured, faceless old portrait on the cover of William Fuller’s new volume of poems, Hallucination, it’s difficult to pick out an overarching voice throughout this collection from Flood Editions. At an organizational level, there is a noticeable divide between the prose works and those set in verse, so much so that the book almost feels as if it were written by two different poets.