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Love and Other Poems
Alex Dimitrov’s third book, Love and Other Poems, is full of praise for the world we live in. Taking time, and specifically the months of the year as an overarching structure, Dimitrov elevates the every day and speaks directly to the reader as if the poem were a phone call or a text message. From the personal to the cosmos, the moon to New York City, NASA’s golden record to the Ouija board, the speaker is convinced that love is “our best invention.” While he navigates darkness and fear, loneliness and guilt, Dimitrov doesn’t resist joy even in despair. There is a determined curiosity about who we are as people and a shameless interest in the idea of hope. These poems are obsessed with everything around us, even the terrible and fraught.
116 pages, Paperback
First published February 18, 2021
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2259 people want to read
About the author
Alex Dimitrov
14 books149 followersAlex Dimitrov is the author of three books of poems, including Love and Other Poems, as well as the chapbook American Boys. His work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Poetry. He was the former senior content editor at the Academy of American Poets, where he edited Poem-A-Day and American Poets. He has taught creative writing at Princeton University, Columbia University, and Barnard College, among other institutions. With Dorothea Lasky, he is the co-author of Astro Poets: Your Guides to the Zodiac. Dimitrov lives in New York.
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February 17, 2025
To the people
reading this poem, hello,
I want you to know
nothing bad will happen
as long as you’re here…’
Stop everything you are doing, I have a poetry collection for you. Yes, you. That’s right, Alex Dimitrov’s third collection of poetry, Love and Other Poems is, in fact, part of that yearning you feel a need to fulfill. I’m not kidding, a few days ago I didn’t realize it was what I’ve been wanting all along but now here we are and I’m up late and drunk in order to tell you about it. Dimitrov is brilliant and his words are so bittersweet and empowering in their cocktail of blissful imagery and lyricism. Ready? Drop everything and check this out.
Honestly people. I work for nobody and all my praise is free but open your wallets for Alex. These are poems that hit me so hard I want to take up smoking again. These are poems you read and know you’ve lived and even if you pretend you didn’t those moments seep back to you in their sexy nostalgia evening wear. ‘We will miss this when it ends, Dimitrov writes, and yea, we sure will. How even the dark times come back to us to remind us of the moments of joy and love that still managed to rise out of the bullshit we were drowning in. A swelling of hope in the retrospective. Because this collection presents a cacophony of images around love, regret, missed opportunities and disappointments, but shows you them as beautiful in their life-lived whole. Or as he says:
‘The day I met you never ended for me,’ he write to concludes the poem LSD. There is a late Leonard Cohen song Did I Ever Love You? that reflects on a relationship and asks at the start of verse 2 ‘is it still raining back in November?’ as if begging to know that a beautiful moment now buried forever in the past still exists eternally somewhere in time and space (the choruses , which just repeat the verses in an upbeat tune conclude ‘its spring and its summer and its winter forever’ to affirm his plea). Dimitrov himself, as if confirming with Cohen, writes ‘I do want to tell you / It was always November there.’ This energy permeates Love and Other Poems, allowing those moments in the past to live eternal in our hearts despite the transitory nature of our existence. The opening poem concerns a sunset that he assures us is ‘over now’ but it has been immortalized to remind us to appreciate passing beauty. ‘Look at the sky’ he says at the end, ‘kiss everyone you can for sure.’ Regrets are just a placeholder for missed beauty. Life is passing us by every second, make the most of it and appreciate it while it is here, like a sunrise that will fade into darkness or a life that will similarly, inevitably fade. Embrace it all, even an ending because, as long as there is someone to remember ‘nothing ends’.
‘Without any without.’
Dimitrov has some of the most purely perfect one-liners and images its almost unbelievable. ‘The most personal moment of the day,’ ‘how balconies hold us,’ ‘The billboards are sexy and American,’ or even just brilliant titles such as ‘Places I’ve Contemplated Suicide or Sent Nudes From.’ Dimitrov manages to make a fully fledged poem, deep and refined, out of what would have been reduced to a singular quotable line as some twee emotion bait in lesser hands. Think of a beautiful one-liner but then make it a multi-line poem that drags the river for all the bodies of meaning while still having flawless one-liners in it’s architecture. BAM. You have an Alex Dimitrov poem and you are gonna sit with it all night long letting your inner thoughts boil over into life affirming tears that will drip into your half-finished beer as it nosedives towards room temperature. I dare you to open this book and walk away cold. You can’t. This is an emotional journey that will hit you where you least expect and you’ll rub your hurt and ask for another. And another after that.
Fuck me up, Alex Dimitrov. The juxtaposition of the closing two lines here in 1969 (the moon landing during the Vietnam War) are the sort that becomes legend. Not to mention the pairing of kisses we never gave with kissing the earth from our inevitable grave. Cue up that Vampire Weekend song about how ’there’s a lifetime/headstone right in front of you and everyone I know’ and lets all appreciate each other while we can. ‘People are being detained / and shot with out money,’ he reminds us in Impermanence, that people are not good to each other and this is sad. ‘The first ending. And knowing it would end’ he says, ‘the first disappointment.’ These are all things we must go through, must grow through, so why not love each other amidst all the sadness and sacrifice. ‘Even our cruelty towards one another. Will end, he writes a few lines later. If we all must die, if everything must end, why not stop and appreciate the way the sun sets between buildings (‘I’m gay / The sunset too is homosexual’) as our heartbeats number towards conclusion. Charles Bukowski once wrote ‘ We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! / That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't.’ That vibe resonates strongly within this collection and gives me hope.
‘Whatever was promised of pleasure
Costs the body more than it has.’
There is an effervescence of glee and bittersweet joy that emits from the darkness and despair here, and we are all better for it. There is even a poem for every month of the year, so it’s handy to have around to read each one as we spin another solar round. I should also mention that beyond being utterly charming, this collection is often very funny, such as the moon waking him up in A True Account of Talking to the Moon at Fire Island and claiming he is ‘only the second poet / I’ve ever chosed to speak to personally.’ Also, I have nothing but endless love for anyone who ends a poem with the line ‘that’s performance art, you fucks.’ This is a really powerful and empowering collection that asks us to appreciate life even when it may seem difficult, and to appreciate ourselves as well. ‘I’m crazy and lonely,’ he confesses, ‘I’ve never been boring. / And believe it or not, I’m all I want.’ This is a truly lovely sentiment, and one that I’d like to learn to take to heart but also hope you all can as well. We are alive, it’s wild and hard and sad but I’d give my last breath if you all could truly fell you were ‘the center of all beauty.’ It’s been a rough time, life is tough, but hang in there, friends. This is a collection that will certainly help with that. It teaches us to embrace life and say ‘‘Yes then. To everything. / Even an ending.
4.5/5
reading this poem, hello,
I want you to know
nothing bad will happen
as long as you’re here…’
Stop everything you are doing, I have a poetry collection for you. Yes, you. That’s right, Alex Dimitrov’s third collection of poetry, Love and Other Poems is, in fact, part of that yearning you feel a need to fulfill. I’m not kidding, a few days ago I didn’t realize it was what I’ve been wanting all along but now here we are and I’m up late and drunk in order to tell you about it. Dimitrov is brilliant and his words are so bittersweet and empowering in their cocktail of blissful imagery and lyricism. Ready? Drop everything and check this out.
Winter Solstice
Again it’s the longest night of the year.
The city closer to a replica of movie sets.
Its garish streets announcing
what can not be measured: silence,
who were in mirrors, neon in the gray.
Three pigeons huddle under bar light.
A couple argues in a diner while a server
brings their checks. It’s unclear what history
has done to them, or even the last five minutes.
besides, who knows what to do with love?
It may not make it through one cigarette.
And it’s enough to kill you, how dark it is
how cold we seem even in our own misery
all while knowing we will miss this.
We will miss this when it ends.
Honestly people. I work for nobody and all my praise is free but open your wallets for Alex. These are poems that hit me so hard I want to take up smoking again. These are poems you read and know you’ve lived and even if you pretend you didn’t those moments seep back to you in their sexy nostalgia evening wear. ‘We will miss this when it ends, Dimitrov writes, and yea, we sure will. How even the dark times come back to us to remind us of the moments of joy and love that still managed to rise out of the bullshit we were drowning in. A swelling of hope in the retrospective. Because this collection presents a cacophony of images around love, regret, missed opportunities and disappointments, but shows you them as beautiful in their life-lived whole. Or as he says:
‘Despite all our work, even the worst of life
has a place in memory.’
‘The day I met you never ended for me,’ he write to concludes the poem LSD. There is a late Leonard Cohen song Did I Ever Love You? that reflects on a relationship and asks at the start of verse 2 ‘is it still raining back in November?’ as if begging to know that a beautiful moment now buried forever in the past still exists eternally somewhere in time and space (the choruses , which just repeat the verses in an upbeat tune conclude ‘its spring and its summer and its winter forever’ to affirm his plea). Dimitrov himself, as if confirming with Cohen, writes ‘I do want to tell you / It was always November there.’ This energy permeates Love and Other Poems, allowing those moments in the past to live eternal in our hearts despite the transitory nature of our existence. The opening poem concerns a sunset that he assures us is ‘over now’ but it has been immortalized to remind us to appreciate passing beauty. ‘Look at the sky’ he says at the end, ‘kiss everyone you can for sure.’ Regrets are just a placeholder for missed beauty. Life is passing us by every second, make the most of it and appreciate it while it is here, like a sunrise that will fade into darkness or a life that will similarly, inevitably fade. Embrace it all, even an ending because, as long as there is someone to remember ‘nothing ends’.
‘Without any without.’
Dimitrov has some of the most purely perfect one-liners and images its almost unbelievable. ‘The most personal moment of the day,’ ‘how balconies hold us,’ ‘The billboards are sexy and American,’ or even just brilliant titles such as ‘Places I’ve Contemplated Suicide or Sent Nudes From.’ Dimitrov manages to make a fully fledged poem, deep and refined, out of what would have been reduced to a singular quotable line as some twee emotion bait in lesser hands. Think of a beautiful one-liner but then make it a multi-line poem that drags the river for all the bodies of meaning while still having flawless one-liners in it’s architecture. BAM. You have an Alex Dimitrov poem and you are gonna sit with it all night long letting your inner thoughts boil over into life affirming tears that will drip into your half-finished beer as it nosedives towards room temperature. I dare you to open this book and walk away cold. You can’t. This is an emotional journey that will hit you where you least expect and you’ll rub your hurt and ask for another. And another after that.
1969
The summer everyone left for the moon
even those yet to be born. And the dead
who can’t vacation here but met us all there
by the veil between worlds. The number one song
in America was “In the Year 2525”
because who has ever lived in the present
when there’s so much of the future
to continue without us.
How the best lover won’t need to forgive you
and surely take everything off your hands
without having to ask, without knowing
your name, no matter the number of times
you married or didn’t, your favorite midnight movie,
the cigarettes you couldn’t give up,
wanting to kiss other people you shouldn’t
and now to forever be kissed by the Earth.
In the Earth. With the Earth.
When we all briefly left it
to look back on each other from above,
shocked by how bright even our pain is
running wildly beside us like an underground river.
And whatever language is good for,
a sign, a message left up there that reads:
here men from the planet earth
first set foot upon the moon
july 1969, a.d.
we came in peace for all mankind.
Then returned to continue the war.
Fuck me up, Alex Dimitrov. The juxtaposition of the closing two lines here in 1969 (the moon landing during the Vietnam War) are the sort that becomes legend. Not to mention the pairing of kisses we never gave with kissing the earth from our inevitable grave. Cue up that Vampire Weekend song about how ’there’s a lifetime/headstone right in front of you and everyone I know’ and lets all appreciate each other while we can. ‘People are being detained / and shot with out money,’ he reminds us in Impermanence, that people are not good to each other and this is sad. ‘The first ending. And knowing it would end’ he says, ‘the first disappointment.’ These are all things we must go through, must grow through, so why not love each other amidst all the sadness and sacrifice. ‘Even our cruelty towards one another. Will end, he writes a few lines later. If we all must die, if everything must end, why not stop and appreciate the way the sun sets between buildings (‘I’m gay / The sunset too is homosexual’) as our heartbeats number towards conclusion. Charles Bukowski once wrote ‘ We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! / That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't.’ That vibe resonates strongly within this collection and gives me hope.
‘Whatever was promised of pleasure
Costs the body more than it has.’
There is an effervescence of glee and bittersweet joy that emits from the darkness and despair here, and we are all better for it. There is even a poem for every month of the year, so it’s handy to have around to read each one as we spin another solar round. I should also mention that beyond being utterly charming, this collection is often very funny, such as the moon waking him up in A True Account of Talking to the Moon at Fire Island and claiming he is ‘only the second poet / I’ve ever chosed to speak to personally.’ Also, I have nothing but endless love for anyone who ends a poem with the line ‘that’s performance art, you fucks.’ This is a really powerful and empowering collection that asks us to appreciate life even when it may seem difficult, and to appreciate ourselves as well. ‘I’m crazy and lonely,’ he confesses, ‘I’ve never been boring. / And believe it or not, I’m all I want.’ This is a truly lovely sentiment, and one that I’d like to learn to take to heart but also hope you all can as well. We are alive, it’s wild and hard and sad but I’d give my last breath if you all could truly fell you were ‘the center of all beauty.’ It’s been a rough time, life is tough, but hang in there, friends. This is a collection that will certainly help with that. It teaches us to embrace life and say ‘‘Yes then. To everything. / Even an ending.
4.5/5
More
How again after months there is awe.
The most personal moment of the day
appears unannounced. People wear leather.
People refuse to die. There are strangers
who look like they could know your name.
And the smell of a bar on a cold night,
or the sound of traffic as it follows you home.
Sirens. Parties. How balconies hold us.
Whatever enough is, it hasn’t arrived.
And on some dead afternoon
when you’ll likely forget this,
as you browse through the vintage
again and again—there it is,
what everyone’s given up
just to stay here. Jewelled hairpins,
scratched records, their fast youth.
Everything they’ve given up
to stay here and find more.
December 24, 2021
This is a tough one to judge, as it offers some pretty good poems and lines, on the one hand, and some pretty alarmingly self-indulgent stuff on the other hand. It's biggest claim to fame would be the title poem, "Love," a list poem sprawling out across 10 pages. Supposedly Alex continues to add to it on Twitter, but what would I know? I am Twitter- (and Facebook-) free.
Criticizing a poet for being "self-indulgent" is dicey business when you consider that a lot of 1st-person POV poems could be classified as such. I'll try to draw the line by putting it this way: If you write about yourself, but it reminds your readers of THEMselves, it's not self-indulgent. But if a reader reads your poem and keeps thinking, "Man, this guy is really wrapped up in himself," it's not good, whether it's vain or neurotic or whatever. When that happens, the reader is more aware of the writer than of the writer's words and how they relate to him- or herself.
"Love" was chosen by Tracy K. Smith as for the yearly Best Poems Anthology. I'll offer it's opening, as a for example:
I love you early in the morning and it’s difficult to love you.
I love the January sky and knowing it will change although unlike us.
I love watching people read.
I love photo booths.
I love midnight.
I love writing letters and this is my letter. To the world that never wrote to me.
I love snow and briefly.
I love the first minutes in a warm room after stepping out of the cold.
I love my twenties and want them back every day.
I love time.
I love people.
I love people and my time away from them the most.
I love the part of my desk that’s darkened by my elbows.
I love feeling nothing but relief during the chorus of a song.
I love space.
I love every planet.
I love the big unknowns but need to know who called or wrote, who’s coming—if they want the same things I do, if they want much less.
I love not loving Valentine’s Day.
I love how February is the shortest month.
I love that Barack Obama was president.
I love the quick, charged time between two people smoking a cigarette outside a bar.
I love everyone on Friday night.
I love New York City.
I love New York City a lot.
I love that day in childhood when I thought I was someone else.
I love wondering how animals perceive our daily failures.
I love the lines in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof when Brick’s father says “Life is important. There’s nothing else to hold onto.”
I love Brick.
I love that we can fail at love and continue to live.
I love writing this and not knowing what I’ll love next.
I love looking at paintings and being reminded I am alive.
I love Turner’s paintings and the sublime.
I love the coming of spring even in the most withholding March.
I love skipping anything casual—“hi, how are you, it’s been forever”—and getting straight to the center of pain. Or happiness.
I love opening a window in a room.
I love the feeling of possibility by the end of the first cup of coffee.
I love hearing anyone listen to Nina Simone...
And so the readers think, "I love that, too!" or "That's interesting!" It works better than a series of poems where Alex dwells on his penchant for crying in public. Now we're in a niche group, I guess. Maybe a niche called Alex Dimitrov.
For instance, take the petulance of "For the Critics":
No, you never got me.
No, I don't think that you ever did.
When I walk into a bodega
and buy cigarettes and ice cream,
blueberries and Diet Coke,
all so I can cry with real enthusiasm
and with feeling, just as soon
as I can make it home --
that's called performance art.
That's performance art, you fucks.
I dunno. Kind of self-created Teflon for anyone daring to call your stuff solipsistic and childish, no? And I'm not sure how a reader could identify -- even a reader who writes and has felt the sting of criticism (read: every writer out there).
Or this, from the middle of "A True Account of Talking to the Moon at Fire Island" (a take on Frank O'Hara's poem of the same title, inserting "Sun" for "Moon"):
"...This was the moon! Talking to me.
Flirting even! The moon was proving
every single grant organization wrong,
the total of grants I've received
in my entire life being zero..."
I could say, "Who cares whether you've been granted a grant or not. Is that poetry?" Or I could say, "Cry me a river. I'm reading a collection of yours accepted and published by Copper Canyon Press, one of the premier poetry publishers in the country. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?"
But I'll say neither. Instead, I'll focus on the enjoyable drift of pages called "Love" and a few other good turns, too. Alex Dimitrov is a talented poet. He just gets in his own way now and then. There are worse problems.
Criticizing a poet for being "self-indulgent" is dicey business when you consider that a lot of 1st-person POV poems could be classified as such. I'll try to draw the line by putting it this way: If you write about yourself, but it reminds your readers of THEMselves, it's not self-indulgent. But if a reader reads your poem and keeps thinking, "Man, this guy is really wrapped up in himself," it's not good, whether it's vain or neurotic or whatever. When that happens, the reader is more aware of the writer than of the writer's words and how they relate to him- or herself.
"Love" was chosen by Tracy K. Smith as for the yearly Best Poems Anthology. I'll offer it's opening, as a for example:
I love you early in the morning and it’s difficult to love you.
I love the January sky and knowing it will change although unlike us.
I love watching people read.
I love photo booths.
I love midnight.
I love writing letters and this is my letter. To the world that never wrote to me.
I love snow and briefly.
I love the first minutes in a warm room after stepping out of the cold.
I love my twenties and want them back every day.
I love time.
I love people.
I love people and my time away from them the most.
I love the part of my desk that’s darkened by my elbows.
I love feeling nothing but relief during the chorus of a song.
I love space.
I love every planet.
I love the big unknowns but need to know who called or wrote, who’s coming—if they want the same things I do, if they want much less.
I love not loving Valentine’s Day.
I love how February is the shortest month.
I love that Barack Obama was president.
I love the quick, charged time between two people smoking a cigarette outside a bar.
I love everyone on Friday night.
I love New York City.
I love New York City a lot.
I love that day in childhood when I thought I was someone else.
I love wondering how animals perceive our daily failures.
I love the lines in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof when Brick’s father says “Life is important. There’s nothing else to hold onto.”
I love Brick.
I love that we can fail at love and continue to live.
I love writing this and not knowing what I’ll love next.
I love looking at paintings and being reminded I am alive.
I love Turner’s paintings and the sublime.
I love the coming of spring even in the most withholding March.
I love skipping anything casual—“hi, how are you, it’s been forever”—and getting straight to the center of pain. Or happiness.
I love opening a window in a room.
I love the feeling of possibility by the end of the first cup of coffee.
I love hearing anyone listen to Nina Simone...
And so the readers think, "I love that, too!" or "That's interesting!" It works better than a series of poems where Alex dwells on his penchant for crying in public. Now we're in a niche group, I guess. Maybe a niche called Alex Dimitrov.
For instance, take the petulance of "For the Critics":
No, you never got me.
No, I don't think that you ever did.
When I walk into a bodega
and buy cigarettes and ice cream,
blueberries and Diet Coke,
all so I can cry with real enthusiasm
and with feeling, just as soon
as I can make it home --
that's called performance art.
That's performance art, you fucks.
I dunno. Kind of self-created Teflon for anyone daring to call your stuff solipsistic and childish, no? And I'm not sure how a reader could identify -- even a reader who writes and has felt the sting of criticism (read: every writer out there).
Or this, from the middle of "A True Account of Talking to the Moon at Fire Island" (a take on Frank O'Hara's poem of the same title, inserting "Sun" for "Moon"):
"...This was the moon! Talking to me.
Flirting even! The moon was proving
every single grant organization wrong,
the total of grants I've received
in my entire life being zero..."
I could say, "Who cares whether you've been granted a grant or not. Is that poetry?" Or I could say, "Cry me a river. I'm reading a collection of yours accepted and published by Copper Canyon Press, one of the premier poetry publishers in the country. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?"
But I'll say neither. Instead, I'll focus on the enjoyable drift of pages called "Love" and a few other good turns, too. Alex Dimitrov is a talented poet. He just gets in his own way now and then. There are worse problems.
July 6, 2022
I hope the future is
all body, all blood.
And since to be queer
is a way to forgive life,
I’ll take as long as I want
finishing my cigarette on Seventh,
walking up Christopher
and thinking of everyone
who’s yet to get here —
somewhere in a bedroom maybe,
young and bored across
the country, not impressed
by our parades or idols,
all the sponsorship we bought.
I’m late for a drink but wander,
handsome and aimless,
looking for a sign
before nodding to the dead
who always need a light.
all body, all blood.
And since to be queer
is a way to forgive life,
I’ll take as long as I want
finishing my cigarette on Seventh,
walking up Christopher
and thinking of everyone
who’s yet to get here —
somewhere in a bedroom maybe,
young and bored across
the country, not impressed
by our parades or idols,
all the sponsorship we bought.
I’m late for a drink but wander,
handsome and aimless,
looking for a sign
before nodding to the dead
who always need a light.
February 9, 2022
When the New York Times reviewed Love and Other Poems, Alex Dimitrov was compared to Amanda Gorman -- both were seen as writing a "refreshing" poetry free from academic opacity. From a different point-of-view, it could be said that they share a flat dullness, a poetry that is obvious to the point of being hardly worth engaging with. Like Gorman's Biden address, cited as an example of poetry for the common people by the NYT reviewer, Dimitrov's verse veers towards the sententious.
The key poem (referenced by the title), "Love", is a twitter poem, an ever open poem that is added to each day. Of course, as a book is a closed entity, only part of it exists within this volume: ten pages of it.
I love people ...
I love the often-uncomplicated joy of dogs ...
I love dessert for breakfast ...
Refreshing? New? Brainard played this game four decades ago with I remember. Smart beat Brainard to the idea in his eighteenth century ravings from Bedlam.
Occasionally, a line flashes into life in the rest of the poems, in a New York neon sort of way, but the writing is mainly characterised by a common vernacular that goes in one ear and out of the other:
I was 19
and now I'm 33.
Pardon? O'Hara's ghost hangs around the book. The volume opens with a quotation from O'Hara. Two key poems, as Dimitrov points out for the reader, in his Notes, owe a debt to O'Hara. And the shifting perspectives, the sudden changes in thought, monologues that do not quite hang together, echo O'Hara too and the New York School. Perhaps, this volume also fails to have impact because it is so American, or rather, so New York. I can see why it lifted the New York Times reviewer: he could walk around New York and breathe the same air as Dimitrov and experience the same places. Alas, or fortunately, I cannot walk to the Cooper Union and continue "crying there but less convincingly." Nor when I stand in my part of the world can I see a homosexual sunset, whatever that New York phenomenon is.
The key poem (referenced by the title), "Love", is a twitter poem, an ever open poem that is added to each day. Of course, as a book is a closed entity, only part of it exists within this volume: ten pages of it.
I love people ...
I love the often-uncomplicated joy of dogs ...
I love dessert for breakfast ...
Refreshing? New? Brainard played this game four decades ago with I remember. Smart beat Brainard to the idea in his eighteenth century ravings from Bedlam.
Occasionally, a line flashes into life in the rest of the poems, in a New York neon sort of way, but the writing is mainly characterised by a common vernacular that goes in one ear and out of the other:
I was 19
and now I'm 33.
Pardon? O'Hara's ghost hangs around the book. The volume opens with a quotation from O'Hara. Two key poems, as Dimitrov points out for the reader, in his Notes, owe a debt to O'Hara. And the shifting perspectives, the sudden changes in thought, monologues that do not quite hang together, echo O'Hara too and the New York School. Perhaps, this volume also fails to have impact because it is so American, or rather, so New York. I can see why it lifted the New York Times reviewer: he could walk around New York and breathe the same air as Dimitrov and experience the same places. Alas, or fortunately, I cannot walk to the Cooper Union and continue "crying there but less convincingly." Nor when I stand in my part of the world can I see a homosexual sunset, whatever that New York phenomenon is.
April 9, 2021
Hard, and unusual for me to rate poetry less than 4 or 5 stars but I finished this feeling like the author was personal but never vulnerable; and reading it was like being on a first date with someone who really likes talking.
I thought most of the poems were just okay. None of the language startled me, the way I often feel jolted at least once when reading poetry, either from something feeling especially true or because the language helps me see/understand something like it's been turned inside out.
Things were told more than described - which is a problem I understand having, but it's hard to have that be the driving force in a poem, I think.
Maybe the poems take place too much in the brain and not enough in the stomach/guts enough for me.
I thought most of the poems were just okay. None of the language startled me, the way I often feel jolted at least once when reading poetry, either from something feeling especially true or because the language helps me see/understand something like it's been turned inside out.
Things were told more than described - which is a problem I understand having, but it's hard to have that be the driving force in a poem, I think.
Maybe the poems take place too much in the brain and not enough in the stomach/guts enough for me.
January 21, 2024
There’s a freedom in hotel bars
when telling the bartender a secret
or switching up your drink
can remind you life isn’t over.
That maybe it’s just stalled for a while.
At first I didn't connect to this as much, but then I ended up falling in love with a few of the poems here and the general YEARNING of it all coming through. I'm not great at writing about poetry, but I can tell you if I feel things when reading it and that has to be enough. I also started to connect with this idea of how things are really not how you'd thought they'd be, feeling lost in that and scared. I needed this.
The standout titles for me in this one were: 'A True Account of Talking to the Moon at Fire Island' (the first where quite a bit of humor started to come through and I thought it was great), 'New York' (an account of a bunch of places and moments of crying in New York), 'January' and 'Poem Written in a Cab'.
Then one day you’re in traffic
at the end of the frozen room.
The edges of your life undressing
and the actors who played you
rehearsing lines that couldn’t
bring you to love.
[Read this as part of an ongoing effort to go through my TBR and read things I've forgotten that I'd added. Using random.org to select stuff from my want-to-read shelf. This was #1002. Also I plan on reading at least one poetry collection a month this year]
when telling the bartender a secret
or switching up your drink
can remind you life isn’t over.
That maybe it’s just stalled for a while.
At first I didn't connect to this as much, but then I ended up falling in love with a few of the poems here and the general YEARNING of it all coming through. I'm not great at writing about poetry, but I can tell you if I feel things when reading it and that has to be enough. I also started to connect with this idea of how things are really not how you'd thought they'd be, feeling lost in that and scared. I needed this.
The standout titles for me in this one were: 'A True Account of Talking to the Moon at Fire Island' (the first where quite a bit of humor started to come through and I thought it was great), 'New York' (an account of a bunch of places and moments of crying in New York), 'January' and 'Poem Written in a Cab'.
Then one day you’re in traffic
at the end of the frozen room.
The edges of your life undressing
and the actors who played you
rehearsing lines that couldn’t
bring you to love.
[Read this as part of an ongoing effort to go through my TBR and read things I've forgotten that I'd added. Using random.org to select stuff from my want-to-read shelf. This was #1002. Also I plan on reading at least one poetry collection a month this year]
August 3, 2022
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these meditations on love. Not only am I not a (modern) poetry reader by nature, though I do try, but this didn’t seem like it’d be my sort of thing, and yet, these odes to NYC, love, and love in NYC made for quite a nice read.
Or, I don’t know, is nice to vanilla of a word to describe poetry? Maybe I should say something like it sparkled or there were at least recognizable sparks of beauty within it.
No rhyme but good rhythms and a strong emotional backtrack throughout, a strong emotional connection to the author, his longings, his thoughts, his desires. Which I suppose is a way of saying that these poems were just the right kind of personal creating for a certain sort of author/reader intimacy, which is something all poetry (and literature) should aspire to.
NYC seems like the last place to look for love or meaning to me, but the author adores it, his enthusiasm and exuberance shines right through his words.
Or, anyway, good. It was good. I liked it. Enough said.
Or, I don’t know, is nice to vanilla of a word to describe poetry? Maybe I should say something like it sparkled or there were at least recognizable sparks of beauty within it.
No rhyme but good rhythms and a strong emotional backtrack throughout, a strong emotional connection to the author, his longings, his thoughts, his desires. Which I suppose is a way of saying that these poems were just the right kind of personal creating for a certain sort of author/reader intimacy, which is something all poetry (and literature) should aspire to.
NYC seems like the last place to look for love or meaning to me, but the author adores it, his enthusiasm and exuberance shines right through his words.
Or, anyway, good. It was good. I liked it. Enough said.
March 23, 2023
honestly really very good with moments that were honestly really excellent even
some moments made me roll my eyes but that’s the gays for you
some moments made me roll my eyes but that’s the gays for you
July 20, 2023
Actually shockingly bad. This guy is Rupi Kaur for gay men who smoke cigarettes and yearn. I picked up Love and Other Poems because I read dimitrov’s poem in the New Yorker and really liked it, and I liked the poem on the back cover of the book. Little did I know it would be one of the most embarrassing reads of my life (there’s a Diet Coke poem!!!!!) …. They just let anyone publish a book these days…. I’ve tried really hard this year, but my brief and brutal love affair with poetry books is over. I’m afraid they’re just not for me.
February 12, 2024
There are some gems here and it's easy to feel like you know Alex. I think I needed to have read this at a different stage of life, in a different place, to fully appreciate it. I have this strong desire to pass this on to someone who can love this more than me.
March 26, 2023
i haven’t yelled so much about a single book of poems in a long time. even tho it lost some momentum in the middle, the long poems really did a lot for me. i lov this book. i lov lov.
February 10, 2022
I absolutely hated this.
November 4, 2024
I love that hour of the party when everyone’s settled into their discomfort and someone tells you something really important—in passing—because it’s too painful any other way
this was one of the best poetry collections i have ever read in my entire life. this was divine. this was everything i didn't even know i wanted
this was one of the best poetry collections i have ever read in my entire life. this was divine. this was everything i didn't even know i wanted
April 23, 2024
i really liked the writing here! some of the poems were just okay to me, so maybe this is more like a 3.5 in all actuality, but some lines just blew me away!
November 12, 2022
I remember once wanting to sleep with a guy who it turned out could not let's say perform though we kept at it like it was some kind of assigned task for much longer than we should have and once or twice I thought oh this might be leading to something but oops nope it's gone again.
August 19, 2021
Peppered with clever, clear, or moving lines, but the poems blend into eachother more than build to a new effect
March 15, 2024
⭐2.75. Some poems are really poignant and touching, others read like Notes App poetry that anyone could probably write, and in my opinion the latter drag this collection down. I'll choose to quote one of the good ones - ironically, I wish there were MORE poems like this in the collection.
"More"
How again after months there is awe.
The most personal moment of the day
appears unannounced. People wear leather.
People refuse to die. There are strangers
who look like they could know your name.
And the smell of a bar on a cold night,
or the sound of traffic as it follows you home.
Sirens. Parties. How balconies hold us.
Whatever enough is, it hasn't arrived.
And on some dead afternoon
when you'll likely forget this,
as you browse through the vintage
again and again - there it is,
what everyone's given up
just to stay here. Jeweled hairpins,
scratched records, their fast youth
Everything they've given up
to stay here and find more.
"More"
How again after months there is awe.
The most personal moment of the day
appears unannounced. People wear leather.
People refuse to die. There are strangers
who look like they could know your name.
And the smell of a bar on a cold night,
or the sound of traffic as it follows you home.
Sirens. Parties. How balconies hold us.
Whatever enough is, it hasn't arrived.
And on some dead afternoon
when you'll likely forget this,
as you browse through the vintage
again and again - there it is,
what everyone's given up
just to stay here. Jeweled hairpins,
scratched records, their fast youth
Everything they've given up
to stay here and find more.
Read
January 2, 2022Poconos #5 / When IBG showed me "Sunset on 14th Street," it became one of my fav poems ever. Heart + voice for days! But it was kinda downhill from there—and that was the first poem! I found Dimitrov's poetry too self-absorbed, constantly talking about the angsty life of a poet (even when the moon—the moon!—talks to him on Fire Island, she tells him he needs an NEA grant and the National Book Award). But I'm being hard on him. I really liked others in the collection, too, like "Winter Solstice" and "January" and the others I dog-eared. I know I"ll revisit his work as I write my own poetry—conversational, humane, self-deprecating.
Once
Would you even believe / when it finally happens / how easy it is to feel / without any proof / that love may be, could be, actually is / longer than time.
Once
Would you even believe / when it finally happens / how easy it is to feel / without any proof / that love may be, could be, actually is / longer than time.
March 23, 2021
2.5 or 3 stars maybe? There were some good lines and some of the short poems were pretty good, but I found overall I was just hoping for more? I enjoy the Astro Poets twitter of which Dimitrov is one half so wanted to give this a shot. I think free verse just isn't my cup of tea maybe? I really like poetry with rhythm that makes me want to recite it out loud, these didn't do that. A lot of them were also just very straightforward and I guess I wanted more metaphors and imagery in general.
December 5, 2022
A superb collection of poems that reminisce on the flawed, fleeting aspects of life. Definitely a collection that is endlessly readable and will only mature on your bookshelf. So many phenomenal poems but I do think ‘March’ is the strongest and a standout.
“Whose turn is it to perform competence and knowledge in the absence of both?”
Gorgeous.
“Whose turn is it to perform competence and knowledge in the absence of both?”
Gorgeous.
August 11, 2021
favorites: September, November, Winter Solstice
dimitrov writes good last lines! may reread once I'm in nyc.
dimitrov writes good last lines! may reread once I'm in nyc.
September 26, 2022
every time I picked up this book it felt like all the poems came to me at the perfect time
July 28, 2021
continuing my habit of reading poetry before important exams (it calms me) and found out in the middle of the last poem in this collection that the author is Bulgarian and also moved to the US when he was a kid, so I'm taking this as a sign that I will pass the bar exam
March 13, 2021
I follow Alex on Twitter. I love his poems. They are absolutely accessible and very beautiful.
March 3, 2021
I read this book three times in a row. If you love New York, love or Sagittariuses this book is for you.
April 18, 2021
"Love and Other Poems" is a gorgeous collection. I've read Dimitrov's other two books and this one is my favourite. Each poem is beautiful in its own way and evocative of Frank O'Hara. Poems like "River Phoenix", "For the Critics", "June" and "Dark Matter" are some of his best work yet. I find Dimitrov to be the voice of a generation, and you should definitely give him a shot. Here's Dark Matter -https://harvardreview.org/content/da
December 31, 2021
I don’t want to make an unnecessary division between “Instapoetry” and “real poetry,” but for what it’s worth I think this poetry collection exhibits how “current” and “traditional” poetic styles/tendencies/sensibilities can be reconciled and pulled off together. Among the poems here I particularly like the ones with months as their titles, as well as “Poem Written in a Cab,” the last and longest poem in the collection.
February 24, 2021
Let's just say that tonight I leapt out of bed because I kept on thinking about a line from one of Dimitrov's poems and I had to find it & underline it because I did not or rather could not forget it under any circumstances.
Also - what better way to begin a poem by saying, "I don't want to sound unreasonable/but I need to fall in love immediately."
Also - what better way to begin a poem by saying, "I don't want to sound unreasonable/but I need to fall in love immediately."
April 3, 2022
2.5
My favorites from the collection: “Time”, “August”, and “Winter Solstice”. The rest of the poems were more misses than hits for me, though.
My favorites from the collection: “Time”, “August”, and “Winter Solstice”. The rest of the poems were more misses than hits for me, though.
March 2, 2025
About a year or so ago I used to read Alex Dimitrov’s poetry on Twitter and I enjoyed several of his poems, enough to purchase an ebook, Love and Other Poems. However, I found this collection a very mixed bag. Many of the poems are too much like real talk for me, which I strangely hadn’t noticed on twitter, especially the first poem, a very long one, Sunset on 14th Street.
Like another reader, I really enjoyed 1969 which begins, “The summer everyone left for the moon.” A favourite, haunting passage further on in the poem is:
“When we all briefly left it
to look back on each other from above,
shocked by how bright even our pain is
running wildly beside us like an underground river.”
One that isn’t like real talk and has the weight (and lightness) of carefully wrought poetry is “Time”. Here it is in full:
“Time
Again I am unprepared
standing under an awning
In the middle of summer
autumn, winter, spring –
watching the downpour
In what could be
the middle of life;
wondering how long I’ll wait
before becoming the rain.”
As I look through this collection again, lines jump out at me, more I think than on my first reading. Here are a few:
“What finds you assumes its place
in the morning and stays.”
“It is not too late for ardour.”
“Whatever was promised of pleasure
costs the body more than it has.”
“...And I know
that looking at the night sky
is me looking at the past.”
“New York” (although quite long) is another favourite poem which begins with the line:
“New York is the best city to cry in.”
“Once” is another favourite poem. Dimitrov’s strengths are his accessibility and how he makes you feel he is speaking to you alone. Strangely the last poem, Poem written in a cab, holds itself together much more successfully, although it is very long, than the first poem of this collection. The poem has this marvellous line:
“I will be a lake at the top of morning
some late afternoon into night.”
Four stars for his intriguing odd lines and my favourite poems listed above.
Like another reader, I really enjoyed 1969 which begins, “The summer everyone left for the moon.” A favourite, haunting passage further on in the poem is:
“When we all briefly left it
to look back on each other from above,
shocked by how bright even our pain is
running wildly beside us like an underground river.”
One that isn’t like real talk and has the weight (and lightness) of carefully wrought poetry is “Time”. Here it is in full:
“Time
Again I am unprepared
standing under an awning
In the middle of summer
autumn, winter, spring –
watching the downpour
In what could be
the middle of life;
wondering how long I’ll wait
before becoming the rain.”
As I look through this collection again, lines jump out at me, more I think than on my first reading. Here are a few:
“What finds you assumes its place
in the morning and stays.”
“It is not too late for ardour.”
“Whatever was promised of pleasure
costs the body more than it has.”
“...And I know
that looking at the night sky
is me looking at the past.”
“New York” (although quite long) is another favourite poem which begins with the line:
“New York is the best city to cry in.”
“Once” is another favourite poem. Dimitrov’s strengths are his accessibility and how he makes you feel he is speaking to you alone. Strangely the last poem, Poem written in a cab, holds itself together much more successfully, although it is very long, than the first poem of this collection. The poem has this marvellous line:
“I will be a lake at the top of morning
some late afternoon into night.”
Four stars for his intriguing odd lines and my favourite poems listed above.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 207 reviews