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Sensational Spectacular
Sensational Spectacular by Nate Pritts
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Paperback
First published August 7, 2007
80 people want to read
About the author
Nate Pritts
36Ìýbooks73ÌýfollowersNate Pritts is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Post Human (2016) and Decoherence (2017). Publishers Weekly described his fifth book, Sweet Nothing (2011), as “both baroque and irreverent, banal and romantic, his poems […] arrive at a place of vulnerability and sincerity.â€� POETRY Magazine called his The Wonderfull Yeare (2009), “rich, vivid, intimate, & somewhat troubledâ€� while The Rumpus called Big Bright Sun (2010) “a textual record of mistakes made and insights gleaned…[in] a voice that knows its part in self-destruction.â€�
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 20, 2009
First of all, a huge THANK YOU to Nate, who was tremendously generous for sending me a copy of this collection.
What to say? Wow!
A quiet pride fills these poems - a pride that is simultaneously humble, hopeful, hopeless, and accepting. The speaker is fiercely insecure, certain of everything but self. Perpetually searching and deceptively innocent, the pathetic hero is jealous - cautious and protective of all he (rightly?) deems his, suspicious of anything that threatens the status quo. Yet things do threaten his status quo, and while vocally he is not complacent w/ these threats, he is quietly given over to irony, and ultimately capitulates w/ the forces of his own and his friends' unraveling. Brave, perhaps foolish in his resolution to venture forth, but our hero seems to become more of an observer as the time passes; he moves right along w/ that time, even when the outcome is certain disappointment.
I can't remember the last time I read a collection so filled with a sorrow that laughs at itself, and asks you to laugh w/ it at the Absurd. A very tight, well-written collection that generally makes me feel good about being human and alive, even if it forces into focus some uncomfortable questions about the role we play in our lives.
What to say? Wow!
A quiet pride fills these poems - a pride that is simultaneously humble, hopeful, hopeless, and accepting. The speaker is fiercely insecure, certain of everything but self. Perpetually searching and deceptively innocent, the pathetic hero is jealous - cautious and protective of all he (rightly?) deems his, suspicious of anything that threatens the status quo. Yet things do threaten his status quo, and while vocally he is not complacent w/ these threats, he is quietly given over to irony, and ultimately capitulates w/ the forces of his own and his friends' unraveling. Brave, perhaps foolish in his resolution to venture forth, but our hero seems to become more of an observer as the time passes; he moves right along w/ that time, even when the outcome is certain disappointment.
I can't remember the last time I read a collection so filled with a sorrow that laughs at itself, and asks you to laugh w/ it at the Absurd. A very tight, well-written collection that generally makes me feel good about being human and alive, even if it forces into focus some uncomfortable questions about the role we play in our lives.
April 18, 2008
This dude's one of my favorite poe nubies. I've seen a lot of his stuff anthologized and thought, "that's pretty good." BUT, the whole collection, I think, is way better than good. It's important to read this book from beginning to end...though the middle section is my fave, and contains poems & lines that have stayed with me for the month since I read them. Like: "The Fastest Man Alive", "Great Thunder!", "Never Be the Same Again."
"Without A Net" is a knock-out love poem, and the heart of the book (and it isn't accidental that it is, actually, in the center). It begins: "One look from you & I'm someone else/turning my back on friends"...then "For your love, I'd cross from one mountain to another,/ walking slow on the long rope bridge to your heart/& I would turn back even if I saw you/ trying to undo the knots that hold me up"(!). (That kills me.)
Expansive, wacky, clever (but in a genuine, not "look at me, I'm clever!" egocentric sort of way), heart-felt, lonely, smart, self-effacing, self-conscious, selfless.
"Without A Net" is a knock-out love poem, and the heart of the book (and it isn't accidental that it is, actually, in the center). It begins: "One look from you & I'm someone else/turning my back on friends"...then "For your love, I'd cross from one mountain to another,/ walking slow on the long rope bridge to your heart/& I would turn back even if I saw you/ trying to undo the knots that hold me up"(!). (That kills me.)
Expansive, wacky, clever (but in a genuine, not "look at me, I'm clever!" egocentric sort of way), heart-felt, lonely, smart, self-effacing, self-conscious, selfless.
December 24, 2015
I especially enjoyed the poems in the first and last sections of the book. They were absurd, surreal, and yet strangely honest in the way they imagined friendships. At times, they even achieved a kind of poignancy, as in "Prison House of the Morning Star":
my friends & I got ourselves trapped in individual-sized
prisons. We could no longer perform our secret handshake,
kept distant from each other by the unique quality of the bars.
The prisons themselves seemed to grow smaller as night
came on & then, with a blink, they were gone. We were ecstatic until,
in daylight, we realized the bars had formed snug to our bodies,
that we'd wear them always & unnoticeably.
December 19, 2009
Update, 12/19/09: just finished my first read through this wonderful collection. So much to like here. A sense of humor, a speaker with a pulse (a rabid one at that), beautiful long sequences. A treasure trove of great poetry. Looking forward to another, more in-depth read.
I just won a free, signed copy of Nate's _Sensational Spectacular_ from GoodReads' First Reads thingy. Woohoo! Can't wait to read it. Thanks, Nate and GoodReads!
I just won a free, signed copy of Nate's _Sensational Spectacular_ from GoodReads' First Reads thingy. Woohoo! Can't wait to read it. Thanks, Nate and GoodReads!
July 1, 2010
First-reads WINNER!
February 1, 2010
I won a copy of Nate Pritts' first book, Sensational Spectacular, in a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ giveaway. I was unfamiliar with Pritts' work, but with the chance of a free copy, I was willing to throw my name in the hat. Little did I know there would be 500 or so other names in that hat and only a handful of copies to give away. Woo Hoo.
I've spent the last week or so reading this densely packed adventure. The book occurs in three parts: 1) Secret Origins, 2) Big Crisis, and 3) The Brave & The Bold. Parts 1 and 3 are composed of two short poems per page concerning the speaker and a group of friends, largely identified by a certain color (Red, Blue, Green) unique to each. Each of these small poems is titled with a colon before the first word of the title and after the last word in the title, providing a frame. In the table of contents, the individual small poems are not listed, so these titles are really intended as section breaks in a long poem called "Secret Origins" and another called "The Brave & The Bold." The poems in the middle section are titled normally and are almost entirely about the speaker, minus his friends.
These poems feel very youthful to me, and I do not mean that as a slight in any way. There is humor here, alongside longing and angst, and a definite sense of the conversational, everyday language spoken in plainspeak, but arranged with a whimsy. There is a fascination for hammers & tools, rockets & robots, and all things outer space. As I read, I felt like I was being allowed to overhear the intimate daily thoughts of a man not entirely grounded in the sludge & trudge of this workaday life. It grew on me.
Perhaps the sign of a poet's success is this struggle I feel to write about the poems. They stand for themselves. So, here is the ending of one of the short poems from "Secret Origins," ":Bowled Over:," in which the speaker explains how he and his friends "enjoy competitive games" like bowling and bird watching.
...........................................My friend
in blue tries to see only blue birds, turning a blind eye
on birds of any other color. His bird watching totals
are staggeringly low. My friend in red counts
anything he sees in the sky as a bird: airplanes,
dandelion pollen, clouds.
And here's one of my favorites in its entirety from the middle section "Big Crisis." Notice the subtle use of sounds, although often askew from traditional placements. You have to read it out loud. (The lines are double spaced in the original.)
Requiem for the End of Time!
Assume there's someone else
pulling my strings, my mouth
opening to say the one thing
that will bring you back to me
but uttering nonsense instead.
Covered with cloud, I'm shaking
as my stupidity grows to silly
proportions. Yesterday morning
I saw the hooded man with the axe, yes,
I was led onto the stage & told to sing
my last. I inhaled & what I inhaled
turned me into a robot, my limbs
clunky & hollow, my chest filled
with gears & pistons where
breathing & love used to be.
I have a glowing faith
that eventually I will leave this all in the past.
I love the way that last line extends longer than the rest, bludgeoning us with that feeling of wanting to move past what has hurt us. I remember studying last lines in a Form & Theory class with Miller Williams and this change in length being one of the closures presented. Pritts uses it quite effectively here.
I've spent the last week or so reading this densely packed adventure. The book occurs in three parts: 1) Secret Origins, 2) Big Crisis, and 3) The Brave & The Bold. Parts 1 and 3 are composed of two short poems per page concerning the speaker and a group of friends, largely identified by a certain color (Red, Blue, Green) unique to each. Each of these small poems is titled with a colon before the first word of the title and after the last word in the title, providing a frame. In the table of contents, the individual small poems are not listed, so these titles are really intended as section breaks in a long poem called "Secret Origins" and another called "The Brave & The Bold." The poems in the middle section are titled normally and are almost entirely about the speaker, minus his friends.
These poems feel very youthful to me, and I do not mean that as a slight in any way. There is humor here, alongside longing and angst, and a definite sense of the conversational, everyday language spoken in plainspeak, but arranged with a whimsy. There is a fascination for hammers & tools, rockets & robots, and all things outer space. As I read, I felt like I was being allowed to overhear the intimate daily thoughts of a man not entirely grounded in the sludge & trudge of this workaday life. It grew on me.
Perhaps the sign of a poet's success is this struggle I feel to write about the poems. They stand for themselves. So, here is the ending of one of the short poems from "Secret Origins," ":Bowled Over:," in which the speaker explains how he and his friends "enjoy competitive games" like bowling and bird watching.
...........................................My friend
in blue tries to see only blue birds, turning a blind eye
on birds of any other color. His bird watching totals
are staggeringly low. My friend in red counts
anything he sees in the sky as a bird: airplanes,
dandelion pollen, clouds.
And here's one of my favorites in its entirety from the middle section "Big Crisis." Notice the subtle use of sounds, although often askew from traditional placements. You have to read it out loud. (The lines are double spaced in the original.)
Requiem for the End of Time!
Assume there's someone else
pulling my strings, my mouth
opening to say the one thing
that will bring you back to me
but uttering nonsense instead.
Covered with cloud, I'm shaking
as my stupidity grows to silly
proportions. Yesterday morning
I saw the hooded man with the axe, yes,
I was led onto the stage & told to sing
my last. I inhaled & what I inhaled
turned me into a robot, my limbs
clunky & hollow, my chest filled
with gears & pistons where
breathing & love used to be.
I have a glowing faith
that eventually I will leave this all in the past.
I love the way that last line extends longer than the rest, bludgeoning us with that feeling of wanting to move past what has hurt us. I remember studying last lines in a Form & Theory class with Miller Williams and this change in length being one of the closures presented. Pritts uses it quite effectively here.
January 13, 2008
Strikes me as simultaneously likably exuberant and poignantly insecure--gives me a sense of exploring certain rifts and crevices between stability/instability and sometimes between solar/lunar.
Reminds me of moon rocks in some strange way. Unique and coveted souvenirs, craggy.
Here is a tiny section I really liked:
"All I ask is that you claim me/
as some part of your mistaken past. Admit that there was a you/
who couldn't live without me."
Reminds me of moon rocks in some strange way. Unique and coveted souvenirs, craggy.
Here is a tiny section I really liked:
"All I ask is that you claim me/
as some part of your mistaken past. Admit that there was a you/
who couldn't live without me."
August 31, 2008
I enjoy the poetry of Nate Pritts'... and I really love the cover!
June 9, 2010
Open and conversational poetry, enough off-beat to be a lot of fun. I would definitely share this with the teens in my life.
August 20, 2010
As the title suggests there are all kinds of funny, sad, and bizarre explosions, shakings, and lift offs throughout this book. I love the sensibility here, the first and last sections my favorites.
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