Air Kissing on Mars

by Kim Dower

A Kim Dower poem is a portal to a haunting universe of everyday life wrapped into poetic reverie. Lost languages, locomotives pummeling through dreams, taxi drivers thrown by the earth's rotation, shadows in closets, vanishing carrots, men who exfoliateNormal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4—all come together in this opus of shining and startling wisdom. At once rhapsodic, edgy and sensual.

Genres: Poetry

136 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2010

About the author

"What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria showcases Kim Dower's distinctive and engaging style when it comes to crafting emotionally engaging, resonating, and memorable verse. Her word smithing, poetry based storytelling skills are truly impressive, making What She Wants especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, community, and college/university library Contemporary American Poetry collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.”
-Midwest Book Review

Kim Dower is the bestselling poet of six collections from Red Hen Press. Her latest, What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair Euphoria, will be published on January 14th, 2025. Kim was City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood from October 2016 to October 2018. I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom (2022), an Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist, was called a “fantastic collection” by The Washington Post, “impressively insightful, thought-provoking, and truly memorable” by The Midwest Book Review, and Shelf-Awareness said, “These gorgeous gems are energized by the sheer power of her wit and irreverent style.” Sunbathing on Tyrone Power’s Grave (2019) won the 2020 Independent Publishers Book Award Gold Medal for Poetry. Her first collection, Air Kissing on Mars (2010), appeared on the Poetry Foundation’s Contemporary Best Sellers list and was described by the Los Angeles Times as “sensual and evocative … seamlessly combining humor and heartache.” Kim’s work has been featured in numerous literary journals including Plume, Ploughshares, Rattle, The James Dickey Review, and Garrison Keillor's “The Writer's Almanac,” and her poems are included in several anthologies. She has taught in numerous writing programs across the country, from the B.A. program at Antioch University Los Angeles to Emerson College in Boston. Next year, Kim celebrates the 40th anniversary of her literary and media services company, Kim-from-L.A. Born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and a graduate of Emerson College’s Creative Writing BFA program, Kim now lives with her family in West Hollywood, CA. To learn more about Kim, visit her poetry website: www.kimdowerpoetry.com.

Reviews

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Playful, imaginative, heartfelt, and funny, these poems are modern and fresh. I kind of get the feeling this collection was mulled over and created over a somewhat extensive period of time. I really thought "First E-Mail of the Day" was quite humorous. "Green Is the New Pink" is probably one of my favorites.

I also enjoyed that the poems didn't necessarily take on one central theme. The "How To" poems kind of do in the way that they're written, but the rest of the book covers everything from a woman who eats a bug to the discontinuation of carrots at Subway.

The silliness, the diversity, and the playfulness make this a very enjoyable read. Some great images here too. The situationally bizarre and even somewhat mundane circumstances makes this not so much a polished collection, but certainly a human one.

[Carrie]

Read the first poem, "They took the mailbox away" and fell in love with the imagery and Dower's use of language. Bought the book, read it, and found that the first poem is - by far - my favorite. There were a handful of others that I liked enough to make note of, but, for the most part, I wanted more emotion and less play. With that said, if you like playfulness in poetry, this is the read for you.

[Erin]

What a truly lovely book!