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List Price: $16.00 | | Publisher: Manic D Press, Inc.
Salesrank: 64428
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| Our Price: $8.24 |
| Used Price: $17.00 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
We'd all love to stop eating
the poisonous parts of our wildness.
Ever wondered what it's like to be a celebrated Hollywood actor from the age of eleven? With insightful, no BS, cards-on-the-table poetry that is quite serious yet has fun with metaphor, imagery, and language itself, author Amber Tamblyn gives readers a backstage pass to the show inside her mind. Whether she's describing real life info-gathering for a new prime time TV drama ("Role Research") or addressing the crossroads of public perception and private life ("Fell Off"), Amber Tamblyn reveals questions, answers, and more in Bang Ditto, wielding metaphors mercilessly in a wry and talented voice.
“Tamblyn’s witty personal accounts and surprisingly lyrical observations go way above the scripted bullsh*t spouted by most of her peers.”—The Onion A.V. Club
“Punchy, spiky, and flush with a young writer's love of language, the collection often deglamourizes the acting business. A great find...”—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
Amber Tamblyn is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award–nominated actor and poet. She came to fame on the soap opera General Hospital followed by starring roles on the television series Joan of Arcadia and The Unusuals. She has branched out into film roles, appearing in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and many other films. Winner of a Borders Choice Award for Breakout Writing, the author currently resides in New York.
Bang Ditto Reviews:
Fresh, Smart, Witty, Incredible! 
2009-10-16 - Bang Ditto is an amazing collection of poetry from Amber Tamblyn. She plays with words beautifully and each poem has its own distinct impact like a punch to the cerebellum. "Run On" is one of my favorites "I'm going to get in my car and write an epic piece. Call it: It's Hard to Face Your Problems When the Problem is Your Face." Brilliant. The thing I really enjoy about Bang Ditto is that each poem is so unique and emotional. I feel like I get a sense of the varied range of Tamblyn's feelings and experiences. The work is also very fresh and invigorating, this is not some average poet musing about life, no, this is a poet who has been there, done it, shoved her face in it, and had the balls to write about it openly. Read it!
a bold & honest look into a very unusual life
2009-09-10 - When people think of poets, they often think of them writing in isolation -- alone at a desk, or a holed up in the corner of a dive bar. Maybe that's way I've always gravitated towards books which showcase the work of working poet / poets with day jobs, living life like everyone else we know.
I have fallen hard for books like Jim Daniels' "Punching Out" (about the poet's childhood and adulthood living a car factory town), or most recently, "The Complete Poetry of James Hearst" which so beautifully captures decades in the life of a Iowan farmer. There is something profound and grounding about learning about a poet by what they do outside of poetry, and how their job (and the toll it can take) affects their relationships with their lovers, their family, their community and even with themselves.
So imagine my absolutely surprise when I realized that Amber Tamblyn's latest book, "Bang Ditto," absolutely falls into this favorite category of "books by a worker poets." Sure, her job may be unorthodox (Hollywood actor), but it nonetheless pushes and pulls at her, inside and out, like any other job would.
Sometimes this theme is obvious -- like in "Learning To Trust Legs", where she talked about being mistaken for a real prostitute when she was only playing one on a live set, or "Role Research" where she talks about stomaching the graphic images & stories she was exposed to while researching her role as cop. Other times, this theme takes a more surreal tone -- like in "Fell Off" where she feels compelled to defend her actor father Russ Tamblyn from an anonymous commenter on IMBD, or in poems like "Dear Demographic" and "My Face" where she bluntly confronts the public perception of what / who she is supposed to represent. Other times, the theme is more hidden -- as when she writes about her extensive travels which pull her away from those she loves, or the affection-plump poems dedicated to those same much-adored people.
Tamblyn's poetry allows us a deep & nuanced insight into her life and the lives of those around, and she further gilds the lily with envy-inducing wordplay: "It's Hard To Face Your Problems When the Problem is Your Face" she announces in one poem; "My heart was a wave / that broke for you" she slides into another.
This is a bold and teeming second book for a young poet still in her 20s, and Tamblyn is another wonderful addition to Manic D Press's eclectic and refreshing stable of writers.
