Hollywood horror, postpunk feminism, spoken-word energy, true-crime reportage, vampire lesbians and modernist cut-up techniques collide and explode in this exciting third effort from Bay Area performance poet Gottlieb (Why Things Burn
). The "final girl" in horror movies is the last one alive, who confronts the killer; here, the series of poems called "final girl" (numbered I through X) ties together a collection of fiery short works as canny as they are sophisticated and as sophisticated as they are angry. Gottlieb sometimes offers short-lined monologues that cry out for performance: "in a name" warns "woe for the man/ who can't tell/ a kiss from a hiss." Yet she also shines in cut-up, collage and multivocal works, assembling them from newspaper accounts of hate crimes, from interviews, from letters and diaries; these latter works recall the technique and the attitude that fans love in the late Kathy Acker. The prose poem "Liability" comments strikingly on transgender issues: a memorable epigram (unprintable here) tells "the frightening truth about desire," while longer poems offer "the predawn mornings/ of lonely postcosmopolitan cities," where Generation Y resists sexual violence and tries to discover what its choices are. "I abducted myself at gunpoint," Gottlieb explains in another daring prose poem—"I am the X that marks my spot." "See me as part/ of a resistance/ movement," she asks elsewhere; and with her political appeal, her technical sophistication, her frequent touring (which includes prestigious rock festivals) and her youth following, a wide range of readers should line up to do just that. (Nov.)
