Personally, I did not particularly enjoy the book. This has nothing to do with literary merit, and was simply because I did not find it that entertaining. Written in a free verse style with long lines and no rhyme scheme, rather like Seamus Heaney’s work, this has the sad result that a section of prose dedicated to Kim Kardashian’s rear sadly reads more like a section of internet headlines than an actual poem.

This collection failed to have much impact with me, partly because it is Americano-centric to the extent that themes fail to resonate. While American readers may get the references to political current events, for British readers the shared culture the collection assumes simply is not present. This collection certainly covers current events in verse, but I am unsure if ‘Wit’ is the correct word.

The poems themselves are about current events: Ali Baba’s launch, the recent revolutions, Kardashian’s rear, but they are overt with little subtlety or insight. A slap taken at liberals at the end of one pop-culture themed poem becomes a barrage aimed at climate change further on. Each work has a short paragraph explaining the author’s view of it, or adding an aside, at the end which are sometimes in italics and sometimes not. There are some extremely odd line breaks and page breaks; one poem has its title and top two lines on one page, and the rest of the poem on the next. Finally in a 315 location book, roughly the last third is samples of other books.

I would give this a two, not because it is bad but because it is a very light and extremely short read, which would appeal more to an American audience.