The Goose Liver Anthology: Mother Goose Meets the Spoon River Anthology. By Ken Anderson. Cover Artwork “Milady with Goose” by Janis Butler Holm, Red Ogre Review & Liquid Raven Media, 2024, 72 pp. pbk $9.99, ISBN 9798883782489
Review by Sandra J. Lindow
Ken Anderson’s Goose Liver Anthology consists of 45 poems set in the worlds of Mother Goose and the Brother’s Grimm but using the confessional style of Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology.
The style is witty, blackly comedic and satirical what Anderson describes as “a cynical look at doom with flashes of love and spunk.” The first poem sets the tone by shooting a drake: “When you pump him full / of lead, he’ll step / out of his feathers / and lie down / on the plate / as courteously / as Sir Francis Drake.” Many of the poems focus on death or maiming while making use of interior and exterior rhymes as well as puns and other language play: Consider the plight of the maid whose nose was stolen by a blackbird: I can’t sort garlic / from rose – be it sub nosa. Oh, / to sniff some hot, buttered oats /or my old man’s frowzy coat!” Other poems explore other poetic forms. “Bessy Bell and Mary Gray” consists of two limericks and a couplet. “The Burden” describes the fate of Humpty Dumpty. It begins:
I don’t know
where those artists got the fancy
I was an egg. I was a boy, though plump
as a dumpling – skull cracked open
like an egg, yes, that which one day
could’ve hatched a thought
Overall, those who love to dwell on the darkness of human behavior will enjoy this darkly cynical collection. An index at the end lists the poems and their inspirations.
Sandra Lindow has served as Vice President and Acting President of SFPA. Her poetry has been seen in various markets including Asimov’s, Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, Dwarf Stars, and the Rhysling Anthologies. Her spec related editing includes Dwarf Stars, Eye to the Telescope, and most recently the Rhysling winners anthology, Alchemy of Stars II. She lives on a hilltop in Menomonie, Wisconsin where she waits out the pandemic and attempts various strategies to keep varmints from eating her vegetables and perennials.
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