The Eye Like a Strange Balloon by Mary Jo Bang

The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Reviews

• 
  Janée Baugher

  Brilliant collection of ekphrastic poems. Also, as a gift to readers the author listed the artwork that inspired the writing in the Notes section at the back of the book.
• 
  Stop

  Read the
  STOP SMILING interview with Mary Jo Bang:
  
  
  
  
  A Talk with Mary Jo Bang
  
  By Jennifer Kronovet
  
  Stop Smiling: Tell me about the first poem you wrote. Did that experience reflect why and how you write now?
  
  Mary Jo Bang: I wrote it in high school, after JFK was assassinated, and after reading a lot of Ayn Rand. It was probably no more than six lines. I remember the last line was: “The man who stands alone,” which now sounds like it should be followed by a few bars of melodramatic music.
  
  
  Read the complete interview...
  
  
  
• 
  Bethany

  I absolutely adore the concept of this book, that each poem was about a piece of art. I should have looked up each piece of art. I think it would have made the poems far easier to understand. As it was, I understand that this is not only ekphrastic poetry, it's also language poetry. That's where the lack of grounding in most of the poems came from. I found it difficult to concentrate and stay with the poem because of that. I constantly felt like there was an inside joke or meaning that I just was not getting.
  
  Mary Jo Bang is clearly an absolutely fantastic poet. There a ton of times I found a moment or line of her poetry absolutely breathtaking, and I love how she plays with rhythm and diction and sound. But the poems can't hold together for me.
• 
  Brian

  The concept behind this collection -- each poem written about/around a piece of art -- is an intriguing one. I think I need to find images of the paintings and go see the movies/ performance art to fully appreciate it, but there's some good, stand-alone lyricism:
  "She admits before this she was ever/ at the midnight/ of not nearly ready. And even now,/ there's no window/ through which she can't see/ the state of a future dissolve--"
  I'm only halfway through; will take a break a return later...
• 
  Georgia

  This one is interesting if you like art based poetry. There is a lot of eye-candy(images and color)here.
• 
  Andrew

  WOW
• 
  Josette

  Ekfrasis. Not sure I am on board for this. Good for what it is, but I could never write this way.
• 
  C

  Good images, but we didn't mesh. My eyes slipped past whole stanzas without feeling or comprehension. I feel guilty.
• 
  Joe

  Ekphrastic madness!