Amazon
author page
For
Girls (& Others): Poems
Bloof Books, 2007
To
purchase from Bloof
Review
in Rain Taxi by Nate Pritts
Review
in Publishers Weekly (scroll down)
Review
in ArtVoice by Aaron Lowinger
Review
in Coldfront by Melinda Kaye Wilson
Review
at Tributary by Allen Bramhall
DOWN
SPOOKY: Poems
Winnow Press, 2005
Review
in American Poet: The Journal of the Academy of American Poets
Review in CutBank
by Joshua Corey
Review
in Galatea Resurrects by Alan Bramhall
Review
by Drew Gardner
Review/reading
report at the Happy Booker by Reb Livingston
Attention
Span note by Rodney Koeneke at Third Factory
Review
by John Latta
Review
by Midwest Book Review (scroll down)
Review by Publishers
Weekly
Review in the
Shaman Drum 05/06 Catalog by Ray McDaniel,
Review
by Ron Silliman
Review
in Small Spiral Notebook by Joanna Pearson
(Sample
poems, MP3s, & a couple of interviews are posted over here.)
From
the back cover:
"Shanna
Compton's Down Spooky is a little bit Texas and a whomping
dose of New York School. Ms. Compton has a great ear and a good eye
for the telling detail, and this gifted poet doesn't mince words. I
like that. I like these poems a lot. There is something quotable, something
memorable on every page of Down Spooky." --Tom
Beckett
"Shanna
Compton steps up to the plate as a new breed of adventure-seeking wordsmith.
Check in here for daring flares of language, jocular and dancing, with
a direct address to the populous of peoples and their props. Get refreshed,
and get Down Spooky." --Lisa Jarnot
"A
sound freak and a sight freak, Shanna Compton has 'hookymaking conviviality.'
Note the predilection for nutty dialogue: 'I believe her married name
was Smith-Corona'; 'We are fronded tickers'; and this satisfying nature
etude, from 'Mouth Made out of Trees' (and out of Stevens): 'the snow
your mouth a new environment mouth/inhalation rapid breathing environmental
plantsign.' What a racket. But this poet is also affectingly elegant
with the visuals: a cat is 'a shroud of a pet'; in an instant, 'the
Oreo dims the milk'--glimpses that haunt the reader." --Caroline
Knox
"'Lips
that have smiled are as limitless as leaves,' Shanna Compton writes
in her poem 'Mouth Made Out of Trees.' Her poems are 'limitless' in
this and other senses; her work radiates an exuberant joy in the life
of words. Down Spooky is a remarkable debut collection by a
poet of wit, whimsy, intelligence, and charm." --David
Lehman
"Down
Spooky is as enchanting as a blue lake on a hot summer day that
you never want to get out of once you’ve plunged in. The book
brims with liveliness, and love, and wit. Shanna Compton has an uncanny
gift of seizing moments and situations with sure aplomb, and even when
she is reveling in word play--in purely verbal speculation--her words
lead to insight. Readers can only be grateful for such beneficent interventions."
--Harry Mathews
"As
Shanna Compton writes, 'Hooray for the Differently Sane.' Down Spooky
is a marvel of deep play and deeper knowingness. Read it and take joy!"
--Susan Wheeler
GAMERS: Writers,
Artists & Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels
Soft Skull Press, 2004
"With
ample reverence for the Atari 2600 era, this collection of personal
essays tracks the cultural and historical significance of video games.
Among the highlights: Mark Lamoureux's article comparing the introduction
of 3-D in games to the discovery of perspective by Renaissance painters,
and Laurel Snyder's tell-all in which she admits to playing Tetris in
her head while having sex. That way, she scores twice." --Wired
"[C]reative
potential is examined in Gamers: Writers, Artists & Programmers
on the Pleasures of Pixels. Through a series of 24 essays, a diverse
assortment of arcade-savvy contributors analyzes the impact that Pac-Man
and his computerized brethren have had on contemporary culture. Relatively
free of I Love the 80s-style nostalgia, the book instead focuses on
the subtle and unexpected ways gaming touches lives. [...] This is best
illustrated in Daniel Nester's profile of former professional gamer
Todd Rogers. A one-time wunderkind whose descent into tragedy directly
parallels the death of arcades, Rogers finds redemption through achieving
the world's highest score in a video game based on the band Journey.
His oddly touching story proves how gaming can inspire just as much
of an artistic response as anything in a museum." --Philadelphia
Weekly
Visit
the Gamers web
page for more reviews & info.
THE
BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2005
Edited by Paul Muldoon & David Lehman
Scribner Poetry, 2005
"This
eagerly awaited volume in the celebrated Best American Poetry
series reflects the latest developments and represents the last word
in poetry today. Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poet and international
literary eminence, has selected--from a pool of several thousand published
candidates the top seventy-five poems of the year. The Best American
Poetry 2005 features a superb company of artists ranging from established
masters of the craft, such as John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, and Charles
Wright, to rising stars like Kay Ryan, Tony Hoagland, and Beth Ann Fennelly.
With insightful comments from the poets elucidating their work, and
series editor David Lehman's perspicacious foreword addressing the state
of the art, The Best American Poetry 2005 is indispensable
for every poetry enthusiast." --from the book jacket
"The
all-consuming interests of American poetry are the all-consuming interests
of poetry all over. As Yeats so pithily had it, 'I am still of [the]
opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious
and studious mood--sex and the dead.' There are so many great sex poems
here, ranging from Catherine Bowman's 'I Want to Be Your Shoebox' through
Shanna Compton's 'To Jacques Pépin' through
Tony Hoagland's 'In a Quiet Town by the Sea' to Cecilia Woloch's 'Bareback
Pantoum.'" --Paul Muldoon, from his introduction
THE
BEDSIDE GUIDE TO NO TELL MOTEL
Edited by Reb Livingston & Molly Arden
No Tell Motel Books, 2006
"[F]avorites
include Zachary Schomburg's prose poems (one of which not only makes
me want to vacuum, but makes me want deep, deep wall-to-wall carpet);
Aaron Belz's factotum poems; 'To His Penis,' Paul Jones's translation/interpretation
of a medieval Welsh poem (in thumping rhymed couplets of loose tetrameter:
auger who drives deep below/leather veined lavender-blue...gnarled yet
graceful, a goose neck,/Hard nail, you left my home wrecked), Jilly
Dybka's 'I have married a crow' (the slant rhyme of turquoise with disguise,
brothers with feathers--and that last line)...Molly Arden's 'Horn of
Plenty,' so performable one wants to deliver it fishnetted & tophatted
like a ringmaster kicking off a Bedside circus (the whole book would
make an excellent poetry theatre show), Bruce Covey's 'Nine Ball' (please
let me take you to Golden Corral someday, O my love), Shanna
Compton's 'Überdesigned Happy Juice,' Shin Yu Pai's lethal
'tie me up, tie me down' (with a brilliant use of 'his/her' in the last
line), [and] Rebecca Loudon's 'Sugar for St. Helens.' --from
a review by Emily Lloyd
DIGERATI:
20 Contemporary Poets in the Digital World
Edited by Steve Mueske
Three Candles Press, 2006
Featuring
poems by Seth Abramson, Aaron Anstett, Teresa Ballard, Shanna Compton,
Eduardo C. Corral, Paul Guest, Nancy Eimers, Deborah Keenan, Jacqueline
Marcus, Frank Matagran, RJ McCaffery, Michael Meyerhofer, Alison Pelegrin,
Peter Pereira, Anthony Robinson, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Matthew Shindell,
William E. Stobb, Tony Trigilio, & Jake Adam York.
