Michael Faudet has always been a poet I resisted as he existed as a cliche of “I write sexy poetry and sexy women take pictures with my sexy poetry book”. I never really gave his works a deep read. He recently released his fifth book, and I decided he’s probably worked his way into being a meaningful contemporary poets and I should give him a real read.
He engages in the Jasmine Christi convention of not using the right side of his pages. I can hear a paramour being upset about the environment and the waste of one sided, one line poems. The first book is his largest book, and many of the poems are short and vague. They remind me some of poetry books that are made for instagram- which would make sense given the stereotype I had previously given him. I actually don’t think this is what he is doing, I believe he is trying to set a scene for his longer poems that take up both pages.
In terms of his form, he is very good with structure and pacing. He effectively uses descriptive metaphor (sticky cotton candy kind of day). I am often lost in his point of view, however, as he seems to speak from the perspective of all people in a poem which leaves me sometimes confused about what is going on.
The target demographic is clear- your lover. This feels mostly like a book that is bought by someone who then gives it to their lover. The need for the perspective to change is to help the female reader get into some of the saucier sides of the book. It lays the ideas and the ground work of sexy moments- that can be brought to real life. To inspire your lover to be intimate. For that purpose I think it is very good and would to encourage you to give it to your lover as a gift.
It even looks very thick, but is a rather fast read. It fits the needs to be a good gift by being a thick book, but also being targeted at people who might not be ready to sit and read a book for three hours straight. Its also a lot of very similar things, where you can start at any point and end at any point and you get the whole book.
About half way I had fun seeing how often he mentions legs. the word legs is pretty critical to his first book. Between them, on them, around, they even do things (like the talking). Skirts as well play a central role- I’m looking for something deeper in the pages of this book that simply does not exist here. No over arching story, no ground breaking revelations, just a sea of legs, skirts, kisses, and sex.
