Book Review

Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs by Ellen Kennedy

ribs

Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs, a book of prose and prose poetry by Ellen Kennedy, is the intial release from indie publisher Muumuu House. It’s a tiny pale green book. The writing style is minimalist, the subject matter is diverse: relationships, depression, organic food, hamsters, Woody Allen, flying whales, and having sex on subway trains. It’s a fair representation of the scope of Ellen’s writing so far.

The poetry is not subtle or wordy; most of it manages a large impact with simple language. This is hard to do, I think. The best of it is quietly beautiful, evoking images and thoughts that go far beyond the handful of words on the page. This poetry makes your brain hum. If I could write poetry I would want it to be like these poems.

The stories mix humor with savage emotion. It’s a war against boredom and sameness, against the dullness of routines that kills. The first story, Eoody Mobby, is funny and surreal, and is the longest piece of prose I’ve seen from Ellen:

As a child, Woody Allen was very lonely. He always won when playing hide and seek because when playing hide and seek the lonely person’s objective isn’t to win, it is to avoid any contact with the others playing. Their fear makes them work harder to escape. Woody Allen always tried very hard to avoid other people.

Probably Going To Die Alone, previously published in the chapbook Young Revolutionaries ( Happy Cobra Books, 2008 ) is more personal, probably autobiographical:

Scott wakes up and walks into the kitchen. Cory says, “Your hair looks stupid.” Judy's friend laughs at him. Scott just stands there. Judy say, “It looks okay to me.” Cory says, “Put your hair back or something.” Scott stares at her and says, “What? I live here” and goes outside on the porch to smoke a cigarette.

When I read a book that resonates with me I want to meet the author, maybe find out what they were thinking when they wrote a particular piece, who they are as a person, because the book has caused “emotional impact”. When you read Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs you will get that feeling. This is a good book. This book is a big hairy fist smashing the flat dull landscape we see every day. This book may destroy Wal-mart.

The book is available for purchase here and some reviews are linked on this page.

Statistics: Total read time: 59 minutes. Time it took to read first story: 19 minutes. Total number of pieces: 23. Best story: Probably Going To Die Alone. Best unpublished stories: Green Toothbrush, Ants Can Never Die By Falling. Best story title: Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs. Shortest story: I Made The Man At The Grocery Store Nervous, 30 words, not including title. Best poems: How To Hold A Person, Orange. Best unpublished poem: No One Cares About Poetry, because it’s funny. Bravest poem: Shit Poem. Music you should listen to while reading: Giant Drag, Dolly Mixture, Radio Birdman.

Recommendations: Buy multiple copies of Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs and give them away to friends. “Aggressively link” Muumuu House.

Notes on design: text-based cover is attractive. Line-height could be more expansive. A line-height of 1.5em would increase white-space and enhance ease of reading.

EK Bibliography

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