Damaged by Jimmy Broccoli

Evocative, dark, filled with the pain of more than one fresh loss. You can feel it, on nearly every page.

Damaged, released independently in 2021 is the debut collection by Jimmy Broccoli, the first in a line of many great books. As a reader who started on his latest release Failure before skipping back to the beginning, I have to say this is a perfect introduction to Jimmy’s work.

My typical wish from shorter collections (this book comes in at just 89 pages) is that I wish they were longer, but I’m starting to really appreciate the brevity of some collections, and in fact I think Damaged is perfect exactly as is.

Separated into four parts; Earth, Air, Fire and Water, each new part opens with a quote and a single letter that, when combined, spells out a word (you must read the book to learn the word!).

To say that the book is singularly on loss would do it and the author a huge injustice, it does contain many pieces on loss as he grapples with grief, as well as love, mental health and addiction. Cellar Door is a stunningly sweet poem that I very much enjoyed reading. And Overthinking Like a Motherfucker has one of the best opening lines that perfectly expresses the title without directly quoting it, ever.

I have to also add that I have a habit, when too tired to actually read, of simply flipping through books and scanning the titles, yes I know there’s a thing called table of contents, and I promptly ignore it unless I want to remember the exact page something is on.

That being said, Jimmy is a true expert at giving interesting titles that will entice you to want to read the piece, I wish my titles were as colorful as some of his! I personally found I Think it Means “Vagina”, But I’m Too Lazy to Look it Up one of the best titles I’ve ever read, without any context to the poem or its subject. And another thing about titles, if you think you can guess the theme of a piece based off one of his titles, you’d be mistaken and I love that.

Two other poems, both on addiction that stood out, were Kill the Methamphetamine Dealer and Disabling the Airbag. They were both incredibly powerful pieces. This collection also contains a twisted, poetic short story called The Door Was Never Locked that was very well done, I am a fan of mixed media works, short stories and poems are a favorite combo of mine.

You can find a copy of Damaged here: https://a.co/d/9GXACch