Lemonworld & Other Poems
Carina Finn
Spring 2013 | 88 pages
REVIEWS
Tarpaulin Sky "Carina Finn's Lemonworld & Other Poems" by Jeff Hecker
Sink Review "Lemonworld & Other Poems" by Carleen Tibbets
Carina Finn's debut collection LEMONWORLD & OTHER POEMS explores the contemporary zeitgeist through the lyricism of fashion, pop, and the youthful vernacular, engaging readers by asserting a sense of self that is at once aware of its place in the cultural collective and of its undeniable otherness. The poems in LEMONWORLD are sound bites on crack, designed to be aurally devastating and always well dressed.
"Whisper something sweet, ginger snow cake," begins a poem here titled "My Serious Virgin Mary Tapestry." And whisper something sweet this ginger snow cake of a book does indeedy, over and over again, until the teeth rot out of your eyes. Pithy as sexting, bratty as junk food, Carina Finn belches weird profundities here spontaneously, even and verily in the midst of all this burnt Barbie hair. "Peace is a field of graves," she says. Or, "My name is Christmas, will you merry me?" Lemonworld is as bright superficially as a sunrise, but what's inside will make you pucker so bad it'll ruin your face forever (4-eva).
Most People I know would hate this book, I think. They wouldn't be indifferent about it. They'd hate it.
—Nick Demske, author of Nick Demske
Carina Finn's works are like the poem equivalents of attending a tea party. Her voice is clear and young and true, and you kind of know exactly what she means in lines like, “this browniemix in me makes me wanna die.” These poems are little slices of cake, and some of them are poisonous, but all of them are sweet.
—Amy Rose Spiegel, associate editor for BuzzFeed Music and staff writer for Rookie
"I'm living in the alarm of a hand grenade swing": In Carina Finn's irreverent, fierce and clever Lemonworld, cuteness is weaponized, melancholy is threatening, and poetry is saturated by fashion's necroglamor. How does one read a book with this many hooks? Some may eat it like cake, but I prefer: "We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now." It's funny, scary and beautiful.
—Johannes Görannson, co-editor of Action Books and author of Haute Surveillance
