Sounds of Rain

Poems of the Amazon
by David L. Harrison
photographs by Doug Duncan
Boyds Mills 2006

Do you like to laugh at bad poetry? Do you want to turn children off to poetry? Do you like to hurl books across the room in fury?

Do you like to read poetry that fails to evoke any sense of its inspiration? Do you enjoy conflicting similes and simplistic observations? Perhaps you enjoy free verse as cold and tasteless as noodles made of sawdust, yes?

Do you hate the Amazon? Would you like to read poems about the Amazon that makes it seem like a Florida backwater? Honestly?

And do you like poor photography, grainy pictures of chickens taken from a distance so great they almost look like specters or heat shadows? And do you like photos of people happily floating in a river against a poem about a nocturnal predator? How about a photo of a splotch on a tree branch, meant to represent some unnamed and generically described Amazon River Basin animal, would you like to see that?

Do you like to be confused and perplexed, wondering aloud if there was any editorial oversight involved in the making of the book at hand? Do you like to thumb through 24 glossy pages of a hardback book of poetry wondering what semi-conscious being would enjoy what could easily be held up as the nadir of good taste?

Do you have enemies or relatives whom you would like to put on the spot by making them gush and thank you for putting such wonderful thought and consideration into such a lovely gift (though we all know better)?

If so, the this is the book for you!