In his second book of poetry (following “The Man Suit”), Zachary Schomburg guides readers through a post-apocalyptic dreamworld. Verse Magazine calls “Scary, No Scary” “a cohesive and (successfully) daring collection of poems, often reading like the diary of a delusional child-prodigy, with an absurd yet compelling narrative strung throughout.” Even the index is unusual; rather than listing poems alphabetically, it catalogs the poem’s themes. Levi Stahl, poetry editor of The Quarterly Conversation, praises the collection for its success in “clearly describing our fears—and by describing them, domesticating them, rendering them something that falls between pleasantly shivery and laughably silly.” Stahl continues:
We emerge from the book as from a dream—not quite a nightmare and quickly fading—to find our backyard tent still pitch-black around us, the night still quietly rustling with breath outside.
It is clear that readers find Schomburg’s poetry as compelling as reviewers; in January 2010, the book occupied the number-two slot on the Poetry Foundation’s Contemporary Best Sellers List.”
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