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I read The Incognito Lounge by accident. Well, the actual act of reading wasn't an accident. Picking up the book in the first place was. Well, that, too, wasn't the accident. Here's the accident--I'd read something about Jorie Graham somewhere in the recent past. I decided I needed to read more by her. The something I read mentioned The Incognito Lounge, and because I apparently have poor reading comprehension skills, or maybe I'm lazy and I like to skim and assume I know what I'm reading, I thought that Jorie Graham wrote a collection called The Incognito Lounge.
I got really frustrated when I couldn't find it. The only version I could find was this book by some dude named Denis Johnson. Turns out, this was the right book all along. Jorie Graham had read Denis Johnson's collection and it helped shape her next round of poems. So maybe I'll be like Jorie Graham and get a sick round of poems now because I finished The Incognito Lounge with a rush of adrenaline coursing through to my fingertips.
In his first few pages, Johnson creates a seedy world of lounge life that is electrifying, desolate, and desperate. He goes on to describe a materialistic city and the mundane and interesting souls that ride through it. The characters here, unlike those in Tate's mad world of quick peeks with no follow-up, are more developed even if many of them are unnamed. Perhaps that's what makes them more manageable. They are realer because we can insert them into our own images and name them ourselves. Those who are named are specific people we all know anyway, especially Jane, one of the women who appears in Part Three, who has two dedications from the speaker. Jane is the plain Jane that makes hearts break through no fault of her own.
The Incognito Lounge wanders in and around the essence of being working-middle-class, having flaws, and moving on even if the move is sluggish. The poems are quick segments of time, vivid flashes of scene and time. I can see why Graham found Johnson such an inspiration. He's fearless and raw.
I got really frustrated when I couldn't find it. The only version I could find was this book by some dude named Denis Johnson. Turns out, this was the right book all along. Jorie Graham had read Denis Johnson's collection and it helped shape her next round of poems. So maybe I'll be like Jorie Graham and get a sick round of poems now because I finished The Incognito Lounge with a rush of adrenaline coursing through to my fingertips.
In his first few pages, Johnson creates a seedy world of lounge life that is electrifying, desolate, and desperate. He goes on to describe a materialistic city and the mundane and interesting souls that ride through it. The characters here, unlike those in Tate's mad world of quick peeks with no follow-up, are more developed even if many of them are unnamed. Perhaps that's what makes them more manageable. They are realer because we can insert them into our own images and name them ourselves. Those who are named are specific people we all know anyway, especially Jane, one of the women who appears in Part Three, who has two dedications from the speaker. Jane is the plain Jane that makes hearts break through no fault of her own.
The Incognito Lounge wanders in and around the essence of being working-middle-class, having flaws, and moving on even if the move is sluggish. The poems are quick segments of time, vivid flashes of scene and time. I can see why Graham found Johnson such an inspiration. He's fearless and raw.
