Pig Out: Sam Sax’s Pig (Scribner, 2023, 112 pgs)
Note: published via the original delivery method of Not Another Newsletter, but I decided to republish it on here.
After my first ever therapy session in 11th grade, I wandered the aisles of a local Barnes and Noble, looking for a book to commemorate the experience. After scouring the poetry section (full of Bukowski and other such poets, I remembered), I saw sam sax’s poetry collection madness. A person, who was beheaded, stood in front of the viewer, as if to say this is what the mental health industrial complex did to me. While I had not intimately encountered the mental health system as I have, looking back four plus years later, I found it comforting. When I read the book, I marveled at the honest depiction of mental illness and institutionalization, as well as the refutation (and seamless incorporation) of myths about the hymen. I then bought (and rabidly devoured) his next book bury it, winner of the 2017 James McLaughlin Poetry Award. I highly recommend both of these books, as well as his other chapbooks that are available on his website www.samsax.com.
I was extremely excited, then, when he posted the cover of pig on their instagram (sax uses they or he pronouns, and I will use both when describing them) as well as put in the comments the name of someone who could give out Advanced Reading Copies, or ARCs, for those who will review the work. I emailed the person, and here I am, iced mocha on the right, book on the left, ready to give you my feedback.
Firstly, the cover design as well as the table of contents itself really adheres to the subject of the pig. The front cover–which you can see in the link I’ve put to the book below–has a pig with a dandelion in their eye. Knives cut up and subdivide its body, with “poems” in a gap between two knives. This goes to show not only the subject of this collection (the pig), but also what conflicts will come into play, especially consumption, as represented by the knives. The table of contents has pig noses (represented by infinity signs) instead of page numbers. The pig is not only the subject, but is front and center in the design of this work. The collection itself, like madness, is subdivided by the parts of the pig, and, in the second part, what it makes: “PRODUCTS: Phonograph Records, Violin Strings, Bone China Drum Heads…” (Sax, 24). The third part discusses literary representations of the pig, from “god of war” to “a stuttering pig.” (Sax, 52) The sections are also titled after the Three Little Pigs’s house construction: Straw, Sticks and Bones. The reader is reminded through these design choices what the subject is, as well as its mythologization, as the section titles indicate.
I read the bulk of this on the train to Giovanni’s Room, a LGBTQ bookstore, with my friends. Their conversations ebbed and flowed as I read his work. My copy is laden with bookmarks of many poems or lines I found interesting, or something I wanted to incorporate into my own poetry. For example, in “Pig Bttm looking for now”, there is a theme of searching for something more than the internet chat rooms the speaker finds themselves in, which is something I would want to write about. Many poems touch on searching for connection from the aforementioned “pig bttm” poem, to “Babe the Pig”, “Interpellation”, “Easy Fast Queers”, and so many more. But, my favorite poem of all was “capital”. It discusses the intersection of the pig’s consumption and market consumption of it. In all honesty, it’s a good preview to reading Marx’s Capital, should you ever feel inclined to do so. At some point, I want to write a poem like this.
In all, please order this book. Sax is an amazing poet, and I love every collection he writes. Plus, they’ll have a novel out next year!
Another Book Rec: Airea D. Matthews (who is a Bryn Mawr professor’s) poetry collection Bread and Circuses (Scribner, 5/31). It combines critiques of Adam Smith with some amazing erasure poetry. Please order it if you can!
Like with sax, I can also review other arcs. I have currently requested one for [sarah] cavar’s novel failure to comply, that will come out this summer and am happy to speak with you about a arc for your upcoming book/novel/poetry collection.