Welcome to the Museum of Cattle by Jane Ormerod

In First Literary Review-East, reviewer Cin Hochman totally gets the one-of-a-kind work of poet extraordinaire Jane Ormerod, in her excellent review of Welcome to the Museum of Cattle (Three Rooms Press, 2012).

“Four decades after the Beatles landed in America came another British Invasion; to wit, the arrival of Jane Ormerod on the New York poetry scene in 2004, an event which was no less swoon-and-gasp-worthy. Suffice it to say, we Yankees are mighty glad she crossed the pond.

So, welcome to the Museum of Cattle, indeed. Welcome to a bawdy barnyard of a book that renders Orwell’s Animal Farm as tame as a petting zoo. Wherein our heroine, in the guise of a Cockney cowgirl, throws out enough red meat to raise cholesterol levels, while simultaneously raising the literary bar. Seemingly spawned from the loop-and-surprise prose of John Ashbery, with a bit of Gertrude Stein’s playful rhythm, Jane Ormerod adds her own fierce and urgent glossolalia. You will find no swaying grass or gentle heifers lowing here; despite the title, this is poetry drawn from the fist of the city, in all its swagger and grit and grandeur. Naysayers of experimental poetry be damned-Ormerod delightfully assaults our senses with language turned on its ear, and the result is a stunning salvo of sonics. Yet, for all her oblique bent and disparate juxtapositions, Ormerod sets a tone which creates a connective chain of lucid thought and meaning. Methinks that Shakespeare would say there’s a “method to her badness.” He would also, as a fellow Brit, proclaim her simply brill.”

And that’s just the beginning!

An excellent review of an extraordinary book. Kudos to Jane Ormerod for her fine work!