I love the trailer for Bipolar Cowboy, which features several readings from the book. I love the trailer so much that I'm gonna post it below so you can watch it immediately:
The poems in this book are an interesting amalgam of Buddhist koans and conversational speech. I thought the poems were very sweet and melancholy and earnest, without being cheesy. The poems are very personal and specific to the author Noah Cicero, but they're also preoccupied with philosophy and trying to make sense of human experience on a grand scale.
The book reminded me a lot of a Japanese phrase: 'mono no aware.' It doesn't have an exact translation in english but wikipedia says it means 'the pathos of things.' It describes the feeling you get when you contemplate the transience and ephemerality of existence, that all things eventually die and change, nothing stays as it is. It is a sad feeling, but it's also a beautiful feeling. Like the sudden blooming and sudden death of the cherry blossoms every year, life is intense and fleeting and full of cycles of death and renewal.
I really appreciated how accessible and honest and emotional the writing was. I wish more poetry collections were like this book. (excerpt)
