In Danger

by Suzanne Lummis

"Few can pull off the poetics of hard-edged black (gray?) comedy with her polish and aplomb. Her grimly hilarious songs have the best virtues of the mode: they're stripped of rhetoric, quick-looted and full of bite....Beneath the captivating narrative surface of these sexy meditations in an emergency, the voice beats with vulnerability and heart." -- Steve Kowit

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0966669118
• ISBN13: 9780966669114
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Roundhouse Press
• Length: 73 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Poet Noir

suzanne lummis take the femme fatale sterotype and inverts it, and as a result, witty and evocative poems are born out of her experience in los angeles; especially the dirty parts that no one wants to know about. the poems should be read while drinking a stiff one or listening to tom waits...astonishing....

One part earthquake, two parts heartache

Two lines to give you a taste: "City of sirens and lowdown ways, neons wincing like nerve ends, see what you've done?" and "You were the B-movie I just had to sit through again." Equally touching and jolting, these poems are one part earthquake and two parts heartache.

If only more poets wrote like this.

Usually in Raymond Chandler (the writer whose noir Los Angeles world leaps to mind when you're reading In Danger), the women are darkly lit and shot slightly out of focus-they're alluring, risky, always our of reach. Suzanne Lummis has turned the tables. She gets inside these shadowy creatures; she's the femme whose got her weapon trained on Marlowe, a guy who's not such a prince after all. It's a brilliant conceit, and it sustains itself throughout this fascinating collection. Like her heroines, Lummis' poetry skirts an edge; it's breathless, chancy, full of juice. If only more poets wrote this way.

Will take you places dark and bright; amuze and delight

Can't add much to David St. Johns' rave intro, but simply put, these poems live up to this bold title in ways intriguing, charming and stark. Though they're indelibly fringe Hollywood, they penetrate mysteries that have no address. In other words, these poems are excellent. You'll love discovering every one.

Smart as a tinfoil diamond tiara, Lummis captures LA's soul.

Pick up the book and admire the cover, a window into the offbeat, edgy poetry that awaits on the pages. Suzanne Lummis goes straight for the heart and jugular, pulling images straight off the streets and tenement hotels, the star magazines and bus stop advertisements, the neon signs and paved driveways of LA. The language stands up and laughs back at you. It crackles and purrs.