
The Stuff of Hollywood is a meditation on the pervasiveness of violence in America. In this book-length poem, Niki Herd relies on various modes—images, prose, and lyric and documentary poems—to reflect upon the quotidian nature of gun culture, police killings, and political unrest. From a busy Waffle House, to a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, to an Uber ride down a Chicago street, readers are placed in various “film” locations and watch as America becomes a character in its own absurd movie. In one section, excerpted language from the continuity script of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 The Birth of a Nation is juxtaposed with text from the January 6 congressional hearings, suggesting a fragile line between real and engineered brutality. Herd interrogates empire and the ways in which violence is consumed and normalized. The Stuff of Hollywood is an elegy for a country that never existed beyond the screen.
ISBN: 9781556596964
Format: Paperback
Reviews
“The Stuff of Hollywood moves like a reel of film, 24 frames per second. Is it a nine o’clock news story? Is it the latest action blockbuster, full of Hollywood’s ubiquitous violence? Herd’s poem is book-length. It has to be, and it is powerful and evocative to its last beating line. Her disciplined approach to structure holds tension from start to finish.” —Raúl Niño, Booklist Starred Review
“Consume, breathe, undrown.”—Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine