I’m Kent Shaw. An avid reader, and a writer. For the last few years, I’ve been writing book reviews at goodreads, because I am interested in drawing attention to the poetry I read and admire. I’ve decided to shift to a personal site. Partially because I am interested in how tags can focus an angle for multiple readings of a single book, and goodreads doesn’t really aggregate for that. In the spirit of Charles Bernstein’s 1990s essay, “State of the Art,” Where he describes a chaos to American poetry. I think in the last ten years, as what’s called American poetry has grown more representative of the poets who are writing, has maintained an element of chaos. There’s no longer a binary opposition (between “cooked” and “raw” or “experimental” and “narrative”) dictating some centripetal center. The tags I propose are admittedly subjective. But I hope they also speak to the variety of concerns and intentions that can inform a book of poems.
I’m also interested in a bookshelf site that’s more incidental with my reading practice. Something akin to an occasional notebook. I like reading a lot, and I’m excited to share it with others. I’m also interested in thinking about contemporary American poetry using a multiplicity of lenses.
A handful of reviews that I’ve recently written or updated. A more complete set is accessible from the Reviews page.
On a technical side, I’ve also moved my site from Wordpress to Notion Sites. Because I’m an avid Notion user. This site is closely attached to a note structure I keep for myself. I mention this, because I am as enthusiastic about the Notion app as I am American poetry.