Broetry by Brian McGackin

'As contemporary poets sing the glories of birds, birch trees, and menstruation, regular guys are left scratching their heads. Who can speak for Everyman? Who will articulate his love for Xbox 360, fo Mama Celeste's frozen pizza, for the cinematic oeuvre of Bruce Willis?'

So begins the introduction to Broetry, a book that claims to offer poetry for dudes who don't like poetry. So there's an instant problem for me here, I'm not a dude and I love poetry. So for this review, I used the services of Crafty Green Boyfriend, who doesn't like poetry (unless I wrote it!), though he's not a Bruce Willis fan and he does like birds and birch trees, so he's not perfect for this purpose, but he's the only guy I know who I can randomly read poetry to, so he'll have to do.

Crafty Green Boyfriend could relate to many of the poems, including Final Final Fantasy (though his weakness is computer games rather than video games per se) and When Patrick Stewart Rules the World (actually I think Crafty Green Boyfriend for a while thought Patrick Stewart did rule the world). He felt that The Road Unable to be Taken Because I'm Trapped Behind a Line of Dudes in Stormtrooper Armor Who Feel the Need to Take Pictures with Every Girl They See Wearing a Slave Leia Outfit was such a good title it didn't need a poem. Being a biologist, but not a fan of peanut butter in any form, Crafty Green Boyfriend was very entertained by On the Origin of Reese's a poem in 14 parts on the natural selection and development of peanut butter cups. He was also totally entertained by Modern Day Heroics, in which the narrator uses his skills at removing spiders from a room to win a woman (even though I'm not scared of spiders!).

I also enjoyed the poems here, they are engaging and clever and written on topics that most people (specially dudes) can relate to. Plus there's a good, self deprecating sense of humour in here:

Classical music. It makes you smarter.
And admit it, you could be more cultured;
you just picked up a book called Broetry.

from Why You Should Listen to Classical Music


So yeah, pick this book up and give it to the men in your life who don't like poetry. Or even those who do.

Broetry by Brian McGackin published by Quirkbooks.