Chimeric Machines [Paperback]

Lucy Snyder distils emotion into words and wraps genre tales in tight syllables. Her poetry dances, full of wit and humor and a sneaky backhanded bite. She tells the truth, and tells it slant; for she has seen life's pain and is not afraid to laugh with you.

I loved her honesty, and her layered levels of meaning. As a student struggling at a non-Ivy State University, I have felt her rage at elitist professors in the poem `Dumb'. Additionally I love Lucy Snyder's titles. In `Sofa Nervosa', we step into the window of a housewife's life as her cat leaves `a comet of vomit, a fishstinky hairball' and her reaction to the coming Apocalypse on the news... for a starlet has shaved her head. In `Prometheus' and `The Fish and the Bicycle' we explore unexpected desires. A series of poems set in Crete, Kentucky illustrate in snapshots sordid smalltown tragedy. Lastly, anyone who's done time in `grad school' intimately knows the characters in `Searching for Signs of Life in the Bottom of a Cup of Cold Coffee'. Perhaps you see one in your mirror.

This is not poetry to bore you, sandwiched and sanitized, gruel for high school classroom consumption. You're not required to map, measure, spindle or explicate it. There are depths to plumb if you're so inclined, a rich and complex labyrinth of meaning and emotion. However, I'd strongly recommend - at least the first time through - you simply enjoy this awesome book.

Chimeric Machines
By Lucy A. Snyder
Reviewed by Nickolas Cook
Creative Guy Publishing
Trade/$10.95

Back in 2007, I did review of Lucy Snyder's short story collection, "Sparks and Shadows" (HW Press, 2007), and was blown away by her ability to cut and kiss with the same sentence. It was an astounding collection that rightfully garnered accolades from many genre reviewers and professional organizations. Now Lucy Snyder has released what may be the best collection of poetry I've read in years- within or without the genre.
Divided into seven carefully balanced parts, Snyder opens the collection with the perfect selection to warn the reader of CHIMERIC MACHINES' impending agenda with `Modernism', a poem steeped in brutally beautiful symbolism that does not leave any doubts of what's to come.
There is not one poem in CHIMERIC MACHINES that doesn't fit in place like a delicately carved piece of a complex and consuming puzzle. There are poems of ethereal beauty that waft through your senses like sugary winged butterflies, and poems that feel like cold rusty blades being driven violently into your soul. One in particular left me teary eyed. `Babel's Children' is less an ode and more of a denouncement of how the late great J.N. Williamson was let go into the void by his `loved' ones.
If it's only half true...well, I'll let you read and decide their deserved fates.
Snyder gives us passion, love, desire, hate, despair, sometimes in the same stanza. It is a gifted wordsmith that can alternately touch your heart and make you existentially nauseous.
But Snyder has a playful side, too, as displayed in Part 4, `Crete, Kentucky', where gathers together a motley crew of grifters and killers and tells their stories in poetic form-- a sort of mini Spoon River Anthology for the horror geeks among us.
If there was ever any doubt about this author's talent, CHIMERIC MACHINES will put them to bed for good and all. There is no other writer working today quite like Lucy A. Snyder. And watching her develop is going to be a once in a lifetime marvel to behold.
P.S.--Get a copy of CHIMERIC MACHINES before she becomes the next big thing. Del Rey, a large NYC publishing house, has finally recognized her enormous talent, and her impeding release with them, SPELLBENT, promises to push her into the well-deserved spotlight.

[...]
--Nickolas Cook

"You're about to be disturbed, fascinated, entranced and bruised," writes Tom Piccirilli in the introduction to Lucy A. Snyder's poetry collection. I was all that, and more. Poems are easy to write; just check the greeting card section of your local Walgreen's. Good poems - that's another story. Excellent poems? Almost impossible. Enter Lucy A. Snyder.

If you love language, Snyder never disappoints. These pieces don't need rhyme or meter to make them sing. She places each word like a gemstone in a setting formed by a master's hand. I kept turning certain phrases over in my mind, fingering them like rosary beads. From "Tech Support", "Faith's no narcotic, once you've lost humanity." And, "Mom's a brick of ash in a Baptist wall/and the nest I made stayed empty," from "After the Funeral". She also offers up what may be the most provocative title of all time, "And There in the Machine, Virginia Finally Stood Up". The poem's as tasty as the title, too.

Snyder channels some fantastical voices - a black hole, an S&M Prometheus, a patricide/suicide. And sometimes, she's just messing with you. You can hear her laughing in "The Fish and the Bicycle", "Home For The Holidays" (who knew a dead man's self reassembly could be witty?), and "Dime Novel". But this is smart stuff. "A Boy's Guide to Neoteny". I had to look up "neoteny" and then the subtlety of the title took my breath away. No, go get your own dictionary.

The pinnacle of the collection is the five-poem cycle "Crete, Kentucky". Greek mythology by way of white trash drug dealers. Labyrinth, anyone? Keep reading; you'll get it. The story seems so straightforward, but layers of meaning reveal themselves on so many levels.

If you like poetry, if you love words, if you revel in wit and intelligence, Snyder's work satisfies and delights. This is a collection you'll read again and again.