“A witty, sardonic poetry, the likes of which could be called 'unimproved'––lacking the polish of shiny commodity. With Bolaño, we encounter not only the 'fist-fucking' but 'feet-fucking' in a poem that also mentions Pascal, Nazi generals, Shining Path bonfires, and a teenage hooker. With Bolaño, the explicit description of a sexual encounter is fragmented by temporal disjunctions, heuristic leaps of thought and a barking dog; in the end, God and an author show up... The poems shine their beery light on life's romantic dogs; dreamers, detectives, and poets who do double-time as saints and martyrs.”
— Forrest Gander, Nation
on Roberto Bolaño's Romantic Dogs
