Fancy Beasts

California wildfires, the 2008 election, plastic surgery, Larry Craig, wildfires, Wal-Mart, and rampant commercialism—in  Fancy Beasts , Alex Lemon takes on American media culture, the obscene foil for personal legacies of violence and violation. The poems of this collection are a workout: vigorous and raw, frenetic and fearless. Yet they are also composed and controlled, pared down and sculpted, with a disarming narrative simplicity and directness. Even when dealing with toxic content—incl