From Publishers Weekly
Seidel's 14th book finds his caustic vigor undiminished, his high-volume confidence as entertaining—or disturbing—as ever: gleeful antiwar protests and self-mocking, obvious rhymes zip easily among a bombed Baghdad, a deluxe version of Paris and a hyperbolically glitzy jetset New York. The volume's emotions swing, too, between the aging poet's obsession with death and his adjacent obsession with sexual prowess: "I spend most of my time not dying./... / I climb on a woman I love./ I repeat my themes," he announces. Many of the poems aspire at once to shock us and to sound blithely assured, with utterances no other poet would think to—nor perhaps want to—set down: "The vagina-eyed Modigliani nude/ Made me lewd," for example. Seidel (The Cosmos Trilogy, 2003) perhaps satirizes a Western capitalism in which no one can be rich enough, fast enough or man enough to satisfy his own ideals. Yet for every reader who finds brilliant, social critique, there may be another who wonders if it's all a joke. (Nov.)
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
With the opening poem, "Kill Poem," readers familiar with Seidel may experience a flashback to "Scotland," the first poem in These Days (1989), given how elements of history, civilization, hunting, and killing are intertwined. And, indeed, this new collection has all the usual Seidel subjects, from fox hunts to violins to Paris and politics (Seidel even confesses twice, "I repeat themes")--but this doesn't diminish the intensity, skill, or bravery of his masterfully shocking style of poetic acrobatics. While some of Seidel's poems border on navel-gazing, others (like "Mother Nature," "The Bush Administration," and "The Death of the Shah") stunningly throw open windows of thought by allowing disparate elements to unite in enlightening ways. One may dislike Seidel's poetry, but most would be hard-pressed to disagree with his work's importance and originality, or deny his artistic courage. We need more poets like Seidel to rub us the wrong way, and induce us to think critically about our history, leaders, and actions. Janet St. John
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"The poems in OOGA-BOOGA are [Seidel's] richest yet and read like no one else's: They're surreal without being especially difficult, and utterly unpretentious, suffused with the peculiar American loneliness of Raymond Chandler ... 'Barbados' is the loveliest [poem] Seidel has written to date, and he's perfected the subtle rhythms and rhymes that rocket the stanzas forward like his Ducati 916SPS. While I can think of a more likable book of poems, I can scarcely imagine a better one." --Alex Halberstadt, NEW YORK MAGAZINE
"Having delivered his fin-de-siecle masterpiece, THE COSMOS TRILOGY, in 2003, Seidel could be forgiven for taking it easy this time out, but he needn't be cut any slack: These poems are as beguiling and magisterial as anything the septuagenarian jet-setter has written. I can't decide whether Seidel has more in common with Philip Larkin or John Ashbery, but the fact that he can prompt such a bizarre question is more revealing than any possible answer ... I hope Seidel wears a helmet while riding his beloved Ducati; it would be intolerable to see this great strange brain spilled." --Joel Brouwer, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"Having delivered his fin-de-siecle masterpiece, THE COSMOS TRILOGY, in 2003, Seidel could be forgiven for taking it easy this time out, but he needn't be cut any slack: These poems are as beguiling and magisterial as anything the septuagenarian jet-setter has written. I can't decide whether Seidel has more in common with Philip Larkin or John Ashbery, but the fact that he can prompt such a bizarre question is more revealing than any possible answer ... I hope Seidel wears a helmet while riding his beloved Ducati; it would be intolerable to see this great strange brain spilled." --Joel Brouwer, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"I spent that evening with three of Seidel's collections. Some of it was profoundly beautiful . . . This sort of poem was atypical, however. Generally, reading Seidel was like riding shotgun on a Ducati racer . . . Quick propulsive speed and sudden screeching stops, hairpin turns into spooky alleys. His voice and verse were razor-edged . . . The writing willing to say the unsayable." --Philip Connors, N+1
Book Description
From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror,
rage, and desire.
Here I am, not a practical man,
But clear-eyed in my contact lenses,
Following no doubt a slightly different line than the others,
Seeking sexual pleasure above all else,
Despairing of art and of life,
Seeking protection from death by seeking it
On a racebike, finding release and belief on two wheels . . .
--from "The Death of the Shah"
The poems in Ooga-Booga are about a youthful slave owner and his aging slave, and both are the same man. This is the tenderest, most savage collection yet from "the most frightening American poet ever" (Calvin Bedient, Boston Review).
rage, and desire.
Here I am, not a practical man,
But clear-eyed in my contact lenses,
Following no doubt a slightly different line than the others,
Seeking sexual pleasure above all else,
Despairing of art and of life,
Seeking protection from death by seeking it
On a racebike, finding release and belief on two wheels . . .
--from "The Death of the Shah"
The poems in Ooga-Booga are about a youthful slave owner and his aging slave, and both are the same man. This is the tenderest, most savage collection yet from "the most frightening American poet ever" (Calvin Bedient, Boston Review).
About the Author
Frederick Seidel's previous books of poems include The Cosmos Trilogy; Final Solutions; Sunrise, These Days; and Poems, 1959-1979. He received the 2002 PEN/Voelker Award for Poetry.
