Skin Prayer

Rating:
Summary: The skin of words
Review: Doug Rice is going to be one of the most important and valuable writers coming from the U.S. at the beginning of the 21st. Century. Period.

Rating:
Summary: The skin of words
Review: Doug Rice returns with his unique style of appropriated and created material, generating short pieces that are both beautiful and bizarre. His words slip into the reader like no other, burning inside you from the first page to the last. Theme wise, he ranges from religion, sex, art, death, life and all their complex inter-relations. Rice's control sits as a study in the economy and the power of the written word. Anyone with an interest in minimalist styles and experimentation should give his work a solid look.
As powerful as all the textual experiments in this collection are, none sit quite so strongly as the early piece that focuses on Kathy Acker and Rice's last memories of her. The elegiac tone comes through powerfully and personally, but Rice keeps a tight hold on it from slipping over the top into sheer sentimentality. This one piece almost sums up all of the book's themes, and I found myself continuing to think on it well after I finished the book.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully Provocative Work
Review: Doug Rice returns with his unique style of appropriated and created material, generating short pieces that are both beautiful and bizarre. His words slip into the reader like no other, burning inside you from the first page to the last. Theme wise, he ranges from religion, sex, art, death, life and all their complex inter-relations. Rice's control sits as a study in the economy and the power of the written word. Anyone with an interest in minimalist styles and experimentation should give his work a solid look.
As powerful as all the textual experiments in this collection are, none sit quite so strongly as the early piece that focuses on Kathy Acker and Rice's last memories of her. The elegiac tone comes through powerfully and personally, but Rice keeps a tight hold on it from slipping over the top into sheer sentimentality. This one piece almost sums up all of the book's themes, and I found myself continuing to think on it well after I finished the book.