Ultramegaprairieland

Workman’s full-length debut employs a range of poetic strategies—from ekphrasia to flarf—to evince a disgruntled irreverence. Rather than focusing on particular objects or moments, Workman’s poems read as constellations of language, giving the impression of Mad Libs done under the influence of LSD: “Ancient glaciers oozed light/ through the general living room of America,/ while an Amish person/ in a dark moment considered/ low-rise skinny jeans and a dolphin/ escaped persecution to form/ a unique but purely hypothetical/ community full of frolic-like/ empathetic aftersex plasma light.” Dynamic and engaging, Workman’s lines reverberate between strange points of reference, as in “The Tribble with Troubles,” where she asks, “What’s wrong with you, William Shatner./ ... My World/ Bank is trying to be cute, William Shatner./ What did you do with the people? & how long did it take you?” Not all of Workman’s experiments succeed; absurdly beautiful moments sometimes collapse into what can feel self-congratulatory or banal. However, the imaginative leaps she takes hint at a deeper sense of playfulness for playfulness’s sake, because there is joy to be found in such acts of creation, in trying to “hear the collective intake of breath/ taught by quaint Balinese shadow puppets/ the synchronization of galactic information/ with the mutual needs of the Earth.” [em](May) [/em]