Review of
Fake
News Poems, by Martin Ott ISBN 9781609643225
Five out of five stars
I really
enjoyed the format of this collection of short works of prose. Each is titled by
a headline taken from a publication, there is one for each week of the year and
the title appeared in a news publication that week in the year 2017. The first
thought that you have is, “Is that headline true or not?” Not are so wild as to
exceed the limits of plausibility.
For example, on
page 27 there is the title, “Suspect Hands Monopoly ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card
to Deputy.” This is right into the “stupid criminal” area that it is thoroughly
believable. The one on page 33 is in fact true. It is “Determined Dad Won’t Let
A Tornado Stop Him From Mowing the Lawn.” The reference is to a Canadian man
and there are pictures to prove it. While I made no attempt to verify the
factual nature of many of the headlines, I suspect that the majority are true.
The prose is fairly
good and holds to the title fairly well. There are many references to American President
Donald Trump and not flattering. The poem on page 29 is title “You’re Fired”
and the opening lines are “The man who drops the axe on many heads may not have
giant hands. He was always there with us, an empty suit with elongated tie, a scarecrow stuffed with
dissonance and disgust.”
These poems are
not deep, but I suggest that you read them more than once, for it is easy to overlook
some of the subtler references to life and current affairs.
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