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Reviewed by Rich Follett for Readers' Favorite
Poetry, at its core, is made up of words at play. Seldom has this dynamic been more richly or wryly expressed than in Steve Davies’ Out of My Mind. Davies’ dark, self-deprecating collection of double entendre verse is a treasure trove of sardonic splendor and a true delight for anyone who genuinely loves to see words used inventively. From “Grey Sky Thinking”: "So, today, I’m out to lunch/Shit sandwiches are the only thing on the menu/At least I have some choice/Do I dine in or take away?"
Whether ‘dining in’ or ‘taking away,’ readers of Steve Davies’ Out of My Mind are in for a delectable feast of tongue-in-cheek verse. In true Cyrano de Bergerac style, Davies can lampoon both himself and the world at large and have everyone well clear of the scene before anyone figures out the full extent of the crime. Out of My Mind is a darkly merry romp through a child’s garden of the perverse.
Davies does not shy away from venerated subjects either: from Shakespeare to James Joyce, everyone and everything is fair game. “The James Joyce Experiment” is one of the more brilliant, spot-on parodies to be found anywhere in modern verse: “Grab the bottle of Beam and simply start/typing the first thing which comes into your/head regardless of the thread or any/regard to common sense and just hold your/breath for the crazy ride upon which you/have set for yourself for rhyme and reason/are irrelevant to the exercise.”
There is a sense of delicious, quiet desperation in Steve Davies’ poems, the overall effect being that we are none of us alone in our paranoia. Out of My Mind is one of the most simultaneously unsettling and comforting collections of verse available to readers of contemporary poetry.
