Ten Books Everyone Should Read

This compelling verse novel proves that poetry can be accessible, sexy, dangerous, and fun.

While I was at university, my reading lists mostly comprised literature from the early 20th century, at the most recent. The content could be challenging in terms of ideas and themes but was often linked only tenuously to current issues. It was also mainly traditional in both presentation and form. So if I were to add any book to a university reading list, I would pick one that bucks the trend: the verse novel The Monkey's Mask by Dorothy Porter.

The poetry that students experience, especially at university, is more often than not archaic or obtuse, so it’s important to find a new way into this form of literature. Dorothy Porter was an award-winning Australian poet who often wove her poetry into novel form, making it both compelling and accessible. The Monkey's Mask, her National Book Council Award-winning second novel, is a carefully constructed whodunit interlaced with murder, sex, and betrayal.

Uniquely, this novel is told in a series of one- to two-page poems that readers experience as isolated moments that build toward a climax. For example, after being wronged by her lover, a private detective breaks into a university to find a piece of the murder puzzle she has been hired to solve:

Is this work or revenge?

My fingers look forward/to breaking in.

The concise, straightforward language creates specific images that allow the reader to sink into the moment; those unused to reading poetry will find themselves drawn in by the simplicity of The Monkey's Mask. It's almost like watching a film in book form, or, more precisely, like watching an hour of back-to-back music videos (this feeds into our current compulsion to consume various forms of media quickly and simultaneously). The book’s apparent simplicity, however, belies the careful construction that allows each individual poem to stand on its own.

The Monkey's Mask is like a gateway drug to poetry in verse-novel form. It highlights the fact that poetry can be accessible, sexy, dangerous, and fun. Not only is it amazingly written with a compelling storyline, it also shows that storytelling comes in many forms. This alone makes this novel an important addition to any reading list.