Genre Fluid
Dan Webber
This neat little book of poetry from comedian/poet Weber is a delight. Taking us on a journey into the world of imperfection and expectations, triumphs and fumbling’s, laugher and loss. It does so with poems which are unreliable; they seem to be fun, silly, throwaways, but then they grab at us, holding us tight, dragging us with them as they fall, deep, deep down. Webbers prose can be unexpectedly exhilarating, which is what a poet is for after all. The shock of the new, which turns out to be an old old story we’ve all lived. These poems pick apart the relentless labels which are attached to the LGBTQ communities and also the ones we pick up and wrap ourselves in, nothing is spared Webbers slightly left field forensic examination of vanity and performances of man’ity. Exploring hook ups, internet dating, gay men’s insecurity, struggles with mental health and striving for wholesomeness this is a small book with a wide remit. Webber pulls it off.
I want my poetry to have some sense to it, an arc which gives the book a centre of gravity for the swirling twirling words to revolve around. I also want my poetry to be able to be flicked open at random and delight in an instant, I’m fickle, demanding, distrustful. Webber sees through me, hears the soft clamouring for seduction and honesty, the almost suffocated murmurs for tenderness and serves us poem after poem with a muscular, relentlessly throbbing, blood pounding heart. He does that thing I adore in poems, the words come back, unbidden at ordinary times, blushing, prodding us to consciousness; those of us who only send kisses when we’re horny.
Out now £8.99
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