Netgalley Review: Please State the Nature of Your Emergency

The sapient roaches of our planetary future, when they seek to understand the sickening dismay, abysmal grief and goofy absurdity of the Anthropocene in Donald Trump’s America, will reach for their dog-eared (or bug-horned) copies of Aaron Anstett’s PLEASE STATE THE NATURE OF YOUR EMERGENCY. In these impossibly crystalline poems, Anstett has distilled from the ironic bile of our vast, unbearable tragedy the steely essence of our predicament.

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I received an e-arc copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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4 Stars

This is a short poetry book, about 50 pages. The poems range in length, but most are pretty short,  and they are free-verse for the most part. Not all are explicitly political, but knowing the context that most of these were written in response to Trump’s presidency certainly helps them make more sense.

I love the title and the cover. They fit so very very well.

Some poems didn’t made a whole lot of sense, or were pretty so-so, but most were pretty good. Some even great. I found some parts, especially the poem titles really funny. I really enjoyed it as a whole.