The Id Kid

The Id Kid is a book about appetites. Linda Besner’s addiction to linguistic play leads to uncommonly beautiful poems: by turns sassy and sumptuous, sparkling with mischief, and marked by deep feeling. There seems little Besner won’t try. Crammed with tall tales, off-colour jokes and cockamamie theories, omnivorousness is her only rule as though she couldn’t bear to exclude anything or anyone. And the result-imaginatively abundant and formally audacious-is one of the most arresting poetry debuts in recent memory.