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Enlarge Cover
list price: $18
edition:Paperback
category: Poetry
published: Apr 2015
ISBN:9781772140149
publisher:
Anvil Press
Description
Kevin Spenst's much-anticipated debut collection of poetry opens as a coming-of-age narrative of lower-middle class life in Vancouver's suburb of Surrey, embroidered within a myriad of pop- and "post-Mennonite" culture.
Language is at play with sit-com sonnets, soundscapes of noise, videogame goombas, an Old-Testament God, teenage longing within the power chords of heavy metal, and the complicated loss of a father to schizophrenia. Jabbering with Bing Bong chronicles the heartbreaking and slapstick pursuit of truth in the realms of religion, mental health, and poetic form itself.
Praise for Jabbering with Bing Bong:
"Each of these powerful poems is a facet of the surreal. It's not bad either that they're witty, tough and funny. Surrey and its many locales has arrived as literary territory. Fleetwood. Cloverdale. Guildford Mall. Surrey Place. Johnston Heights. The Port Mann. Coast Meridian Road ... The work here is in a variety of forms, including a few prose poems. The tone varies but the situation is the same. Here are 24 more reasons for jabbering with Kevin Spenst." (The Vancouver Sun)
"Spenst offers up a heaping serving of variety running the gamut of scenarios through religious zeal and impropriety, mental instability, teenage angst and comedic sonnets splashed haphazardly against a backdrop of stereo soundscapes, tender whispers, and heavy metal noise injected through the needle of poetry at its diverse and disgruntled best." (Candice James, author, Poet Laureate of the City of New Westminster)
"Belief and disbelief rub up against each other in this startling and flawless debut collection. ... These important poems do not redeem so much as allow the possibility of redemption." (Jen Currin)
Most Anticipated Poetry selection, 49th Shelf (Spring 2015)
Contributor Notes
In addition to the UK, the United States, Austria and India, Kevin Spenst's poetry has appeared in over a dozen Canadian literary publications. In April and May of 2014 Kevin Spenst did a 100-venue reading tour of Canada in support of small poetry presses with his chapbooks Pray Goodbye (the Alfred Gustav Press, 2013), Retractable (the serif of nottingham, 2013), Happy Hollow and the Surrey Suite (self-published, 2012), What the Frag Meant (100 têtes press, 2014) and Surrey Sonnets (JackPine Press, 2014).
