by Tao Lin
Melville House 2008
Reviewed by John Findura

Antics

Tao Lin is a famous author. Sort of. It does say so on a t-shirt. But mostly it seems he is of the subset where many know of him, and many fewer have read him.

I don’t think that would bother him, though he probably wouldn’t mind the added cash flow. See, Tao Lin does strange things, such as offer shares worth 10% of future royalties on his forthcoming novel, Richard Yates, for $2,000 each. He sells random stuff from his apartment on eBay. On some of the things, he draws a picture of a hamster. It’s worth mentioning he is young, most likely annoying to anyone over 25 (his age). And that he doesn’t like Anti-Tao Lin Shittalkers. More importantly, maybe, is that for all the press he drums up online, whether positive or negative, he and his writing are usually “interesting.” Consider then that his latest collection of poems, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, is worth your dollar.

For those of us taking Graduate classes in Clinical Therapy, or for those currently in therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is recognized as the current “next big thing,” even though it’s been around since the 1960s, when behavior therapy bumped into cognitive therapy (which I always picture as “You got behavior therapy in my cognitive!” “No, you got cognitive in my behavior!” Both: “Delicious!”). CBT is used to treat many conditions such as mood disorders, anxiety, substance abuse, personality disorders, and on occasion, psychotic disorders. If you know anyone who has gone into therapy for post-traumatic stress, depression or OCD, chances are s/he has experienced CBT. In its simplest terms, CBT aims to change the way one handles emotions and behaviors. In Tao Lin’s case, it can be difficult to tell if the book is his therapy or the reader’s. Best answer: a bit of both.

Aside from the usual Tao Lin craziness, which is reflected in the multi-part “hamsters are heads with little characteristics on the head” and in his rejection of capitalization (take that, Convention), he renders absurdist logic both Poetically and anti-Poetically. Perhaps it is because the reader is always anticipating something along the lines of “An angry hamster looks exactly like an unangry hamster because the / anger is within” that he is able to slip in a line such as “i miss walking with you at night”–and you believe him, but not in a sappy way. You can sense the desire to do coupled with the desire to think.

He can be extremely funny too (seriously, hamsters everywhere), but occasionally his Brooklynite-hipper-than-thou runs come off as juvenile. It’s self-conscious irony, for sure, and his supporters gladly look the other way and smirk. It’ll be interesting to see how long he can pull this off before it becomes tired and he has to rely on his very real talent rather than his ability to pull chip-on-the-shoulder, self-loathing snarkiness from a hamster’s ass.

Nonetheless, his infighting can be compelling, his need to negotiate the desire to do with the need to ditch his “stay fucked up forever” security blanket. As Lin writes in “the power of ethical reasoning”:

 i knew how it felt to not be in control of one’s life
 the next day i said ‘if you really wanted to change
 you would have changed by now’

The same could be true of Tao Lin the poet. He may never stop writing lines such as “i enjoy a quiet night masturbating in front of the computer / with or without high speed internet.” But he is capable of creating these weird little windows into what feel like autobiographical toss-offs, distracting us from Tao Lin the Famous Author, who seems so much more a product than a real thing at times. I don’t mean that to be a negative: he’s learned how to sell himself, and has created a devoted following that occasionally will even Pay Pal him $20 if he asks for it on his blog. Props. But none if it has to do with the quality of a poetry that, at its best, contains a kind of cutthroat mania that can’t be faked.

For all his weirdness, and for all the seeming dangerousness of being a real live artist, what stands out the most in his poems is an apparent willingness to look into his own psyche and be honest about what he finds. He ditches the cool, detached exterior when he puts down

 the secret of life is that i miss you, and this describes life

 tonight my heart feels shiny and calm as a soft wet star

In the end, Tao Lin is utterly, hilariously real when he writes,

 …my poems exist to dispel irrational angers, that i want to hold your face

 with my face

 like a hand

and finally when he says, simply, “i hope you like me so far.” Tao Lin the Famous Author? Eh. Tao Lin the Poet? Yeah…

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