“The Girl With the Glass Eye” is the newest book from Kapow Press, a basement publisher in California teaming up the US’s best slam poets with its best comics artists. In this case it is New Mexico’s Kenn Rodriguez doing the writing, with illustrations by “El Sonambulo”s Rafael Navarro, and the results are stunning as usual. Not much more than xeroxed chapbooks in production value, Kapow books are notorious for their content-per-penny quota, and this is no exception. Kenn writes with a clarity of idea but an economy of language, resulting in action-packed poems that rarely ever exceed one page. Try “Low Blo Haiku,” for example: “What I really meant to say, when I said “I love you,” was ‘blah blah blah.'” Rafael’s graphics work well with the written pieces, and the entire book is a cute little monster that will have you reading it again and again. Highly recommended! (JP)
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