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# “Glitter Grenade: a review of Aaron Belz's Glitter Bomb” - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/glitter-grenade-review-aaron-belzs-glitter-bomb/
- Published: 2014-08-04T05:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-18T16:56:44.000Z
- Description: (Reviewer’s note: I don’t know much about Aaron or about poetry. You can click here for samples and a quick check on Aaron’s background. Or you could go to Costco, then hire a licensed private investigator. Just depends on what kind […]
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Guest Writer

(*Reviewer’s note: I don’t know much about Aaron or about poetry. You can* [*click here*](http://tearsinthefence.com/2014/06/19/glitter-bomb-by-aaron-belz/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) *for samples and a quick check on Aaron’s background. Or you could go to Costco, then hire a licensed private investigator. Just depends on what kind of samples and background check you want.*)

One book of poetry, two days of pleasure (mixed with confusion) for the reader.

The author rarely swings and misses at that third strike. Never metaphor at a five-‘n’-dime

he couldn’t flip to readers and leave ’em at sixes and sevens.

Does

blank verse shoot lead or

blanks? Does this poetry earn

blank stares?

Does *Glitter* *Bomb*? Answer left

blank. (For an atom-split second, just wait.)

Was the bomb dropped? Diffused? Answer right

now: all the Belz, most of the whistles. Almost all flowers, just a few thistles.

Do not ask for whom the Belz beguiles. [His toll fare is fair](http://www.amazon.com/Glitter-Bomb-Poems-Aaron-Belz/dp/0892554312/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com), for his free verse brings smiles.

In some, low overhead, genius-saturated. In 1/2 of 1/2, my crazy culture much-exegeted.

In sum: 1/2 genius, 1/2 cultural saturation craziness that’s over my lowly head. (Epexegetical much?)

The first poem feels like a second chance, rising on the third day, sallying forth, a ship’s captain—my captain—and a fifth of gin.

Can intoxicated poems deep-six the seven seas of reader’s regret for my overly prosaic sins? Spoiler alert: yes.

Do the lines lumber, like a rusty Olds eighty-eight?

Spoiler alert: nein

Behold, young poems that glitter. Light and shiny as tin,

ever-new, wise like an elf,

riffing—even rhyming—until the clock Belz strikes twelve.

I’m Cinderella, these poems are glass slippers. They once were Lost, these ~~4 8 15 16 23 42~~ 61 poems and now I am found. Amazingly gracious, and glittery ever after.

At least until I return to the Inhumanities to read, idk, *Collected Essays* or *Assays into Collectivism*.

But while you watch me careening back down my academic cliff,

Spent like a beer at Cheers falling from the cleft chin of Cliff

Note:

some will want CliffsNotes, a treble clef on which to transpose

Belz’s ringing, confusing,

pleasing notes.

But they’re not so much

de-noted as detonated. Not so much

composed as decomposed like fertilizer that fuels the

*bomb*, man. Just try transposing *that*.

I did, and I’m all blown up, not at all composed.

It’s totes my faults the *Glitter* earthquake exposed.

*Jason volleys great riffs from the Great Rift Valley in East Africa.* [*Follow him on Twitter* ](https://twitter.com/jasonbhood?ref=mereorthodoxy.com)*and* [*on Facebook*](https://www.facebook.com/TanzanianButterflies) *if you dig lepidoptera. His latest book is* [*Imitating God in Christ*](https://mereorthodoxy.com/imitating-god-in-christ-recapturing-a-biblical-pattern/)*.*