Hallelujah Blackout

(Paperback)

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Astonishing . . . A pure-gospel shout to the vaulted heavens. D. A. POWELL

Written in the aftermath of brain trauma, this astonishing collection takes us through a glittering underworld of illness and recovery, on a confrontational, explosive trip that is at once euphoric and brutal. Through the painful process of rehabilitation and the lingering effects of illness, including a gradual loss of vision, Alex Lemon undergoes a forced metamorphosis that shatters the divide between pain and joy. These poems invoke, proclaim, decry, and serenade the world that results after the violation of identity.

From the taste of blood to a glimpse into the opening heavens, the hallucinatory poems ofHallelujah Blackoutare an expedition of self made foreign: when the membranes that divide mind and body rupture and the space between them is made, visible, radiant, alien. It is a rapturous reclamation of the body and a mournful ode to what has been lost. Without relying on familiar narratives of despair and pity, this collection serves as a tender hymn to the decay, crimes, and promise of human life.

Reviews

A Chaplinesque vaudeville, both mirthful and moving; a pure-gospel shout to the vaulted heavens; a hatful of abracadabras with a wink and a smile: Hallelujah Blackout is a muscular, vibrant book. Painful without being pitying (I have little time to let mere ailments worry me), inventive without being showy, this is an astonishing, masterful collection of poems. -- D. A. Powell

Alex Lemon's poetry is a downpour that lets you see through all the gristle to our real faces. These poems charm us with their kinetic, near boisterous spunk, but they sting us too with their ever-present currents of contemplation and despair. Here amid a jukeboxed moon and the sweet, sweet boogaloo of light, the only thing more remarkable than Lemon's linguistic muscle is the blood singing up from his gut. -- Terrance Hayes

Alex Lemon is an unstoppable phenom. He gets so much into a poem: so much world, such rich human voice, and he gets so terrifyingly close to both the self and the overwhelming Everything Else. He does this while making us look at the smallest, loveliest, worst, or plainest details at the oddest moments. Readers experience the wearing of shirts and the eating of apples and beans; a split second later we're by turns divine, genius, ravaging, and prayerful. Then we're hurt again. Then we're in love. It's as if we have been granted extra lives. Lemon's art is transformative, staggering, and in the end, compassionate. He's one of us, letting us know: we're in trouble but we're okay. -- Brenda Shaughnessy