Review of Graham Irvin’s Liver Mush by Some Guy

Maybe I am not one of those people who entirely gets it. In this iteration of alt lit, I see talk of folks who get it, and those who don’t. Nothing new, really. Insiders and outsiders. All that good, vaguely tribal stuff that’s crucial to building allure and audience. I’ve been published by Back Patio. I consider myself an outsider. I don’t know. 

I read the first third of Liver Mush by Graham Irvin and I thought it was another book of anti-poetry poetry, which it sort of is. 

It opens fast, with multiple sections separated by few pages. The repetition of the phrase liver mush begs the reader to imbue it with more meaning, more subtext, though I found myself resisting. Outside of the introduction of K and Ben, there’s little else shared of the narrator’s life or experience, other than, by god, he loves liver mush. And he’s depressed, which is expected to be shared openly and repeatedly when reading indie lit. 

So to me, liver mush was just some food some guy really likes to eat because it’s so good and reminds him of stuff. 

The genre seems to be spearheaded by folks who understand an inherent nihilism within any attempt of narratization, and run, to the point of absurdity, with the freedom that provides. Just as a story can be told in infinite, valid ways, words themselves can mean infinite, valid things. Give multiple poems about how liver mush and scrapple are not the same. Write thirty pages in the same tonal register. Say more or less the same thing over again. Provoke and prod the rigid rules, spoken and unspoken, of a dying medium, by any means. 

Sort of like spitting on the grave of some asshole who just died, but the spit forms and creates a beautiful portrait of the deceased.

But then you get to a “Liver Mush Is An Essay About My Mom”. This reorients the entire experience of the first third of the book. There’s a lot that can be said about this poem. Tender, heartbreaking, funny, honest, reflective. Vulnerable parts of my life ached and warmed in Graham’s words. This is the first point in the book where I felt like something was at stake, even if that’s an absurd and stupid way to frame something as stakeless as poetry. It really moved me. 

Suddenly, the first third of the book melded like a cohesive unit, priming me for an emotional reaction that I had written off from coming. It lulled me into an unfocused boredom through repetition, which cultivated a craving in me for something, though I wasn’t cognizant of this craving until it was satisfied. And it satisfied. 

The quick section breaks of the first third promised enough potential variance that it kept me reading, which I mean to say if the first third was kept under one section, I probably would’ve given up. The section breakers are like speed strips in Mario Kart. The track doesn’t change, you just pass faster through it. Smart structural decision. 

In a macro sense, the poems of the first third on their own might not be entirely riveting, but they create a vacuum, poem by poem, in which the reader is eventually shoved into. I suppose you can’t ask for too much more from an exposition. 

It seems unlikely the poems in this book were written in the order they are laid out. But it does feel as though “Liver Mush Is An Essay About My Mom” shook something in Graham Irvin or me or the book altogether alert to what makes a poem compelling. The book moves, in similar tone, style, and substance, as the first third, but with greater fluidity, with better storytelling. 

The “Everything Grey Is Liver Mush” run of poems, capture whole worlds in impressive efficiency. 

“Bambi Wants To Eat What We’re Eating” is one of the best and maybe only poems about a dog that doesn’t feel pathetic. 

“At The Warehouse In Jersey” is a burst of lovingness that feels honest and hard to find for anyone experienced in working a shit job.

The callback on “Scrapple Will Never Be Liver Mush” is god damn beautiful and revalidates the first third of the book again. It’s another impressive structural move. The relationship between K and the narrator is, all of sudden, more real, more consequential, and more loving. To do this by basically repeating a previous poem that fell flat, is impressive as heck.

That might be the great feat of Liver Mush. It’s a book that’s dependent on itself. It builds upon itself. Separately, the parts might not stand for much, but together, they redefine and reinforce their boundaries and power. Like a grey, nutrient dense, Transformer. 

And by the time you get to the last section, “Let’s Bring It Back Home” the poems roll easier and carry more weight in each word. 

Graham captures his own self-referential world perfectly in “The Last Poem.” 

“I’m looking forward to
a future where I can
say with complete sincerity
liver mush saved my life”

It’s a moment where the world of potential subtexts for the words “liver mush” is clear. I don’t know Graham, but it makes me hope liver mush can save him too.

AN ASIDE:

Coincidentally, I just started following this Instagram account called the Liver King. It’s basically this nutso freakishly jacked dude with a huge beard who eats raw meat and works out all day while his Liver Queen films him. He detests modern society and believes in nine ancestral tenets (idk what they are) and touching your feet to the grass and getting the sun in your face. It’s almost a horseshoe theory of a jock to an esoteric art person. Except that he’s really into the idea of dominance. But this Liver King guy is so pure and sometimes talks in this poetic way that I think could end up in a book like Liver Mush. Maybe something Graham would find interesting.