Hush should never have been published as a zine. It is written, but not arranged, with the cadences of a performance piece, and it suffers from not owning up to what it truly is. The words and letters are arranged artfully but without any real skill, so the conceit falls flat. This would have been interesting if read aloud, but otherwise it makes a boring read. Sampirisi seems to be so in love with her own artsy ideas that she takes no responsibility for reining them in and making them work for her. I mean, really, what the hell is a “b,dy”? Punctuation abuse like this cannot be allowed to stand and, to add insult to insult, the cover is so badly printed that you can’t read the back blurb. The result is a poetic chronicle of gestation that seems to take a literal nine months to read. Lucky for everyone, it is mercifully short. Sampirisi should have just saved this for an open mic night. (J. Blackmore)
poetry zine, Jenny Sampirisi, $7.50, [email protected], www.thornburgpress.ca