The Cheapest France in Town

Hak (The King of Adventure) delivers a droll, absurdist collection that pokes fun at poetry as well as life’s tedium and despair. The poet invites the reader into a series of outlandish scenarios that address intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships with an emphasis on the effects of capitalist society, greed, and waste. A couple stuck in an elevator that’s about to crash quibbles over a grapefruit, a powdered product mixes with water to deliver instant romance, and displaced alien musicians with mediocre talent reject the idea of working harder after being critiqued. Hak offers aphoristic insight on the subject of distracting oneself from existential dread: “Worries were/ sweet like condiments and the television was happy like you.” He embodies the natural tendency to seek instant gratification: “No one wanted sweet love because saliva/ gathered in their mouth. This was where not even sweet humans/ but sweet candies were needed.” Hak’s poems may induce vertigo to grammar purists and those who are not fans of the absurd, but for those who are, the intentional awkwardness, non sequitur tangents, and whimsical story lines are sure to delight. Ever surprising and engrossing, Hak’s writing transports. (Oct.)