Nice Moves

From Elisa Gabbert’s review of the poetry collection PERSONATIONSKIN at Open Letters Monthly:

I included “Autobiographia”—the first poem in Karl Parker’s debut collection, Personationskin—three times on a list of 41 “moves” in contemporary poetry (commonly encountered techniques or maneuvers). It was the only poem of his I had read so far, or I could have included more. Parker has a lot of moves—and I don’t mean that in an accusatory way. Moves are the memorable parts of a poem. There’s no dancing, no chess, without moves.

Parker’s moves include, but are not limited to . . .

The compound nonce word: “That was prettymuch the story of my life”

The throwaway pun: “ACTUALLY SAY LA VIE”