I don't read that much poetry, but I love Denis Johnson's short stories and novels, so I gave these poem a try. Some were amazing and haunting, while I did not get the others. I have a feeing that this is one of those that will grow on you every time you read it!

Favorite poem so far: Vespers

Happy New Year. My resolution is to read for at least 25 minutes each day. I'm trying to tie up loose ends meaning I am trying to finish all the books I started last year and never finished. The copy of Denis Johnson's The Incognito Lounge and Other Poems, published in 1982, was chosen by Mark Strand as part of the National Poetry Series, and taken out by me from Butler Library as supplemental material for my re-read of Jesus' Son.

In the contents page, some previous reader wrote, "All great. Here are the ones that killed me" and proceeded to put a little check mark next to the poems that presumably killed her. Following suit, I added my own check marks (in pencil, though—not pen). Of the 31 dark and odious trips through hell, 13 killed me, while the other 17 entertained me greatly. I loved this collection. Moody, smart, cryptic, frightening, it felt like reading a poète maudit from the 19th century. Johnson lands somewhere among the outlaw Rimbaud, the beautiful Baudelaire, and the desolate Unreal City of Eliot. Throw in some repulsive Burroughs section and you'll get an idea of what D.J. is doing here, though it's unfair to not declare him more than the sum of these parts. He rises above any sort of borrowing and steals away with a sparkling imagination.

A few of these poems were outright brilliant brilliant (e.g., the title piece and "White, White Collars"), while others struck me as more cryptic than enjoyable, or even effectual. Fans of his prose may or may not like this book.

Dark, sticky, but never cynical, these poems of emergency, failure,and love plunge into places you hope the author didn't have to live in/through, but there's no wallowing.

My favorites from the collection: "Night" & "The Flames"

Read this at least for 'The Confession of St. Jim-Ralph'.

"Whatever is most terrible is most real—
the Bible fights, The fetuses burning in light-bulbs,
the cunnilingual, intravenous
swamp of love."