Wordplay and the Walking Dead in “Zombie Vomit Mad Libs” https://ift.tt/qSNUQXA
Duy Đoàn’s Zombie Vomit Mad Libs, the follow-up to We Play a Game, winner of the 2017 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, is a refreshingly unique poetic expression of both language and creativity. The work is unconventional, allowing readers to actively participate in the storytelling. Using the conventions of fill-in-the-blank Mad Libs (the word game most readers are familiar with), Vietnamese diacritics, and the popular subject of a zombie apocalypse, Đoàn’s new collection masterfully juggles the humor of the absurd, horror, language, and imagination.
Zombie Vomit Mad Libs is set in a time of changing climate, during which a zombie apocalypse has emerged, leading to both zombies and humans clinging to shreds of what remains. Beginning with the poem “Contagion,” the author sets the scene of an outbreak, then slowly brings readers into an apocalyptic environment.
The title seems to imply comedy or lightheartedness, but Đoàn’s work is heartfelt, touching on the humanity within oneself and the desires, wants, and fears that we all possess. The tone of the work strikes a chord between beauty and eeriness. Balancing on this line, we see the artfulness of linguistics and imagination at play.
Thematically, Zombie Vomit Mad Libs delves into the macabre, regeneration, and humanity. These themes are presented through a distorted lens, allowing readers to fully immerse themselves in the apocalyptic world of the collection. Some poems contain blanks like a Mad Lib to be filled in by the reader. Others have blanks that have been filled in by the author, bringing new thought-provoking meanings to the text. The collection also contains poems written in more traditional stanzas, poems written as theatrical scenes, and others with simply one or two lines. The Mad Lib element of many of the poems allows readers to participate in the themes of the collection, both inspiring and reinforcing the concepts of the work.
Content-wise, it is worth noting that Đoàn uses Vietnamese diacritics on English words, accentuating the pronunciation of each word. The poet also uses absurdist humor in a fantastically morbid fashion, using the Wikipedia article on “Tooth” and substituting “frog” to make “The Autobiography of Frogs” and combining a Mayo Clinic article on eye floaters with details from Anne Sexton’s suicide via filled-in Mad Lib blanks. A line that sums up the collection well is in the poem “LET THE RIGHT ONE IN — FIRST MEETING SCENE (IN REWIND)”:
Girl Vampire:
is. it way the just That’s
reason? a be to have there Does
This collection is about humanity in a zombie-filled narrative. The poet features many horror works, such as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror and Låt den rätte kommain (English: Let the Right One In), a Swedish horror film. In addition, Đoàn references Nirvana lyrics, UFC fighter Sean O’Malley, and Pokémon.
Zombie Vomit Mad Libs is disjointed in the most wonderful of ways, playing into the title’s themes of both zombie vomit and Mad Libs. The collection feels like the disconnected thought process of zombies still attempting to hold on to their humanity and figure out the world around them. The collection keeps one guessing, unsure of what will come next, almost like an apocalypse but also mirroring life in general. The dark humor, pop culture references, historical connections, and the prominence of death — complete with Mad Libs and Vietnamese diacritics — all make Zombie Vomit Mad Libs stand out as a collection worth reading and coming back to repeatedly.
Entertaining and a lively ride, this poetry collection is brilliantly bold. Through the simple use of Mad Libs and diacritics, it shows the power of language. Đoàn finds a way to mimic life and our humanity in a way that invites humor but also leaves the reader to ponder the unknown and the true power of language.
POETRY Zombie Vomit Mad Libs
By Duy Đoàn
Alice James Books
Published November 26, 2024
0 Commentaires