Some Thoughts on Dark Brandon

Is Dark Brandon the book Ashbery would write if he were Brandon Downing's age?

Downing is a very clear Ashbery disciple; he incorporates whatever's in the air--in his case, images and associations called up by movies--into the stream of consciousness of the poems.

Unlike Ashbery, however, Downing's poems are motored by a palpable outrage at what's going on around (Bush, the apathy built into our culture) and within (his own apathy and flippancy) him. That outrage and anger is one of the book's most compelling features.

I don't feel the need to read the whole book. The whole thing seems to be cut from the same cloth, in pieces of different shapes and sizes, but it's all the same substance.

Of course, I would get more out of individual poems if I were more familiar with all the movies that are referenced.

Intentional grammatical errors and colloquial language figure that apathy and flippancy.