Snapshots

Rating:
Summary: A good example of why self-publishing should be outlawed
Review: In the Author's Note to this abominable collection, Mr. Jonjak confesses to the reader that he "never much liked poems or even thought of them as a legitimate form of literature." This admission is revelatory, for the tripe here (I can't call it work) reads exactly as though it came from someone with no appreciation for the art form.

Each piece is the sort of dreadful, insanely boring free verse one might encounter while flipping through the diary of an overwrought fourteen year old. There are multiple poems about writing poems (always a red flag), dreary and pointless diatribes about Star Wars action figures, and a lazy reliance on profanity and cliche to propel this wretched little row boat to the other side of the author's murky bathtub--from which vantage point he can best record his detailed perceptions of his own navel.

At best, this sort of thing is passionless and banal; at worst, it's actually embarrassing to read:

"You can save your energy for something better/like writing poems/That nobody will ever want to read/or buy/or understand."

or

"This is what they do to fake it/The charlatans, the liars/Look at the book I wrote"

or

"But you're a writer/And you can't stand to throw anything away"

It actually gets worse, at points, but such is the risk with self-publishing. Proponents of the practice grimace and twitch and point to James Joyce as their archtype, though how many Snapshots (could there be a more generic name?) must we endure for another glimpse at Ulysses? Had Mr. Jonjak the fortitude to show these to an editor (or even an honest friend), he might have spared himself a few dollars in publication costs, and his readers from encountering lines like "Everybody's going to know you're a faker," prescient as it might be. (Perhaps, actually, he has a future as a critic.) He's right, of course. We do know. We know from the first page.