May 12, 2005

Stuart Kelly reviews 4 Pressed Wafer chapbooks (Jack Evans's Work, Joe Torra's After the Chinese, Sean Cole's Itty City, and mine) in the most recent (or at least I think it's the most recent) Poetry Review from the UK.

This review of my 29 Cheeseburgers, which is one of the most generous and astute reviews I have received thusfar:

"29 Cheeseburgers is a more complex volume. Like a more
calorific Proustian madeleine, these "edged
circle[s] of nausea" conjure various losses.
Lamoureux has a quiet but convincing surrealism;
as he says "whenever tragedy smacks / I think of
smiling elves." The poetry reflects the
"constant crush of tongues" in the modern city:
Japanese cartoons and bureaucratic jargon,
advertising jingles and ouija board jinks. It's
an interzone, where you "can't tell the cafes
from the bars." Cutting thorugh the white noise
is a powerfully articulated vision of complex
emotions; a simultaneous blending of cynicism and
hopefulness. "Would that I were/ punk rock &
could/ care less about those girls". Evoking, as
in [Joe] Torra ['s "After the Chinese" from PW]
also involves admitting absence."

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