Chazzbot Recommends

Jon D. Lee's collection is now available on Amazon.

I had the pleasure of hearing the author read some of these poems several years ago, and they were among the funniest and most biting poems I've ever heard. Upon reading this collection, however, the poems take on added qualities of wit, irony, and occasional poignance.

Though the subject matter of these poems is the speaker's anti-social, anti-hygienic roommate, this is far from a gag collection. Like any worthy poet, Jon Lee never fails to celebrate the humanity of his subject, even if he spends most of his time on the couch, eating the speaker's food while engaging in all-day marathons of, say, Babylon 5.

The value of these poems is how they manage to effectively capture all the details of Brian's generally supine existence (a life, Lee suggests, that could only be lived in the late 20th/early 21st century) with the poet's incisive, honest eye, without resorting to easy, juvenile disrespect for Brian's lifestyle. This is not simply a joke book, and Lee's treatment of his subject invites the reader to regard him/herself with the same brutal honesty.

This book would serve as a perfect "gateway" collection of poems for readers who are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with poetry. But there are rewards here also for the poetry connoisseur. Lee's use of language, his eye for detail, his incisive observations offer a rewarding read. But, ultimately, it is Lee's use of Brian--a kind of modern Oscar Madison with an Xbox--that affords the reader an insight into the value of poetry. It is a celebration of the flaws and failures that make us human, and Lee is our quiet roommate with a well-stocked cupboard.