Quietly Subversive Verses: a micro-review of Tom C. Hunley's What Feels Like Love: New and Selected Poems by Dustin Pickering

Tom C. Hunley’s What Feels Like Love: New and Selected Poems employs irony in the same manner as Bob Hicok. This stylistic distinguishes public and private realities while maintaining their intersectional nature. The cover art ironically portrays romantic adventure. The middle-aged couple of the foreground seems oblivious to the explosion behind them. This satirical conception loosely defines Hunley’s poetry.

The poetic monologues in The State that Springfield Is In are spoken by characters from The Simpsons. The voices are intoned similarly to speakers in Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. Akin to Spoon River, these monologues reveal conflicts within a small society. There is also the lampoon of politically motivated censorship. “’Jihadist Homer,’: an episode Fox was too chicken to air” is in the voice of Lisa Simpson. In the poem, Lisa brings home the Koran and we watch the unfolding of darkly humorous cultural confusion.

The title poem is about a conversation between the poet and his disadvantaged daughter. The father seems possessive but the situation concerns uncomfortable dynamics within a traumatized, low-IQ girl’s misunderstanding of male attention. “Wives of the Poets” from the Plunk section also suggests differences between genders and their worldviews exist, but it moves from classroom discussions to interpersonal household trouble. This associative method invites reflections on social realities.

Hunley’s verses are also charming. The intriguing imagery and humor of “The Dental Hygienist” typifies the Octopus selections, making it my favorite section.

What Feels Like Love is as autobiographical as much as it is socially relevant.

Watch Tom Hunley’s interview with Parrot Literary Corner!