The author of several books of poetry and translation, Urayoán Noel brings a satirical voice and a contemporary urban consciousness to the traditional notion that the poet will entertain and enlighten. The results, in his hands, are a well-done weird. Inevitably, they’re also compelling, and then a penny drops, and they provoke.

 

Seen from one perspective, his 2010 collection Hi-Density Politics (Buffalo: BlazeVOX) represents a shift from Noel’s earlier work. Its greater emphasis on process and constraint yields a new experience on the formal level, particularly where Noel has used new technologies to produce his teeming metropolis on the page. Yet Hi-Density Politics offers all the more when considered as an extension of his previous books, published in 2005 and 2008.