A Review of Tara Campbell’s " Political AF: A Rage Collection," by Heidi Blakeslee

If I could tie ex-president trump down one time and force him to listen to someone reading him a book, it would be this one.  This book addresses the grievances that have been building up for centuries in the US.  In fact, I would pay someone to sit there and read it to him over and over again until he can’t remember his latest Rush Limbaugh propaganda and mitigates some of his brain damage.

Even just the titles of the poetry and prose inside are astute and visceral.  Ones like “Vessel of the State,” and “Shut up and Dribble,” cut right through the conservative claptrap and get to the heart of what’s important about issues like reproductive rights and race.

“Political AF: A Rage Collection” is the book that you should give your relatives for the holidays.  Be bold and let the questions and discussions that flow from this book awaken the people who need it and comfort the ones who desperately need kinship in this time of social distancing.

Some of the poetry inside is set up to mirror the ridiculous bureaucracy that holds up the judicial system and the scams featured in fine print that no one ever reads.  “US Government Form BC-451: Form to Procure Permission to Purchase Birth Control,” absolutely skewers the double standard that exists for the 1% vs the 99%.  Campbell illustrates the terrifying truth of the real “deep state,” and its agenda for women’s bodies.  Make no mistake, if there is a deep state to be had, it is the white supremacist garbage-mongers who are at the source of current Republican ideology.  Like a criminal prosecutor, Campbell illustrates the sick illogic that permeates current evangelical radicalism. 

 Using her poem “In Contradiction to the Commander’s Standards and Wishes” as a compass, we see that she sets her sights for moving forward squarely where they should be, “on science/ in consideration with community standards and wishes/ based on faith/ in reason/ in empathy/ in data/ in compassion/ in knowledge/ in questioning/ in resistance.

Tara Campbell is a fierce, fierce voice that stands up to ultra-conservative fascist propaganda.  I know I will remember this book and refer back to it time and time again.

Published by Unlikely Books. Available on Amazon

www.taracampbell.com is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse. She received her MFA from American University in 2019. Previous publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Jellyfish Review, Booth, Strange Horizons, and CRAFT Literary. She's the author of a novel, TreeVolution, and three collections: Circe's Bicycle, Midnight at the Organporium, and Political AF: A Rage Collection.

Tara Campbell