a true, raw talent ( )

My reaction to this book is one of my typically long, circuitous discussions. If you have the time, you can read the entire thing here. If you'd like a shorter snippet, here you go:

This collection reminded me in many ways of Mikita Brottman’s short story collection, Thirteen Girls. I found myself curious about all the women in this collection, as I did when I read about the women who fell to serial killers in Brottman’s penetrating look at victims and the ways they are remembered. The titles of the poems are the names of the women they are about, and there were enough stories of women and children whose sorry tales I knew before reading this book to ensure I felt the power of the poems Tamblyn crafted to portray them. Seeing the most troublesome parts of their lives depicted in poetry forced me to rethink my attitudes towards some of the people Tamblyn wrote about.

For instance, “Lindsay Lohan.” Her poem is blank, an expanse of empty page under the title. At first it seemed almost like a joke, a jab at this crash-and-burn starlet’s lack of gravitas in her current role as media laughingstock. But upon reflection there was so much more involved in leaving the page empty. She’s still alive, still crashing and burning, and there is no sense that there will soon be an end to the wreckage of her life. As much as she is mocked in the press, she’s had the sort of life that should inspire empathy. But that doesn’t happen. Many people look at her and see a clown, a rich white girl who squandered all her chances, and there is some truth in that, but it’s not the sole truth about her.

Amber Tamblyn’s a few years older than Lindsay Lohan but they had similar beginnings – both had roles on soap operas when still children, and both began to get roles in movies geared toward younger audiences. How did Lohan end up a joke and Tamblyn end up still working, albeit writing and producing as much as she acts? Lohan’s shitty parents, determined to make a buck off their kids, played a role, as did the company young Lohan kept. Few made it out of the early-era Paris Hilton mob unscathed. Factor in drugs, mental illness, and a complete inability to keep addiction and illness under control and you end up with Lohan. Tamblyn’s parents knew more about the entertainment industry, and she was shaped by counter-culture influences that while embracing the entertainment industry still kept an honesty and authenticity about their lives, the sort of authenticity that makes hanging around with Paris unappealing.

It’s often a thin line that separates those who rise above and those who sink down and even her relatively fortunate background didn’t save Tamblyn from being hit on by James Woods when she was a teen. Knowing she and her friend were sixteen, James Woods evidently tried to lure the two to go to Las Vegas with him. She told him she was sixteen but that didn’t deter Woods. James Woods called Tamblyn a liar but she hit back harder, and interestingly he shut up when she did. After she refused to give any sort of quarter to his response that she lied, he likely thought the better of continuing the dialogue because the fury she unleashed upon him was both beautiful to behold and resulted in other actresses joining the #metoo revolt in his name, notably Elizabeth Perkins.

If Lindsay Lohan ever spoke up about the men whom her parents essentially sold her to in order to reap the rewards of her fame, would you care? Would you laugh? Would you think she was embellishing the story? She’s now essentially a yacht girl, and if you don’t know what that is, go look it up and ask what kind of shit must happen for an actress who started off so strongly, who had talent and beauty, to end up living such a life. By leaving that page blank, Tamblyn lets the reader construct their own poem about Lohan... ( )

I picked up this book of poems because I LOVED Amber Tamblyn in "Joan of Arcadia" and was curious as to what she was doing now. I'm not someone who obsessively follows the lives of the rich and famous, so I didn't know what to expect from a book of poems about "The lives of more than twenty-five actresses lost before their time" . . . but was pleasantly surprised . . . despite (or maybe because of) the dark topic . . . Probably should be "must reading" for any aspiring actresses out there . . . especially the poem "Untitled Actress" . . . The poems are also very feminist in their analysis of how women and women's bodies are viewed and judged. And as Diane di Prima suggests in the introduction, after reading these poems I really want to know more about the women who inspired them . . . and then want to re-read the poems. ( )

5 out of 5. In the introduction, Diane di Prima suggests that as you read you might get curious about the women referenced here. I can attest that, indeed, you will. You will read this collection and you will wonder about Peg Entwhistle or Laurel Gene. And you will google them. Just like you'll google Amber Tamblyn, because you will want to see that she is, in fact, okay. And you will take comfort in that - comfort in the knowledge that not all stories have an unhappy ending. It's the same reason we're okay with and not laughing at the fact that "Lindsay Lohan" is a blank poem.
Hope. And maybe a little love, too. We idolize and we lionize and we devour these women - but maybe, just maybe, this is a collection that'll make you pause before we do the same to the next young girl fresh off the bus with dreams of being a star...

Full review TK this week. ( )