real.m by Alfaro

Inside a quiet-looking black-on-white perfect-bound poetry chapbook is a near riot of metafictional phenomenology regarding the existence and presence of the book itself. For instance, the front cover contains a poem called “Front Cover Art”. There’s a long, very long single angry sentence threading like a subterranean worm through other pieces, many of which are labeled “haikus”. Here’s what one poem tells us:

Life is
A beautiful book
A sad song
Or a brilliant movie
And it only needs
To be transcribed
Onto paper
Into sound
Or on film
And then
It will be saved

I like the blunt simplicity of this quizzical poetry book, as well as the elegance of its physical design.

Review by Levi Asher
www.litkicks.com