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Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems
A lyrically intense fifth collection from “one of the nation’s most provocative and edgy poets” (San Diego Union-Tribune).
With both passion and precision, Lucifer at the Starlite explores life’s dual nature: good and evil, light and dark, suffering and moments of unexpected joy. Whether looking outward to events on the world stage—the war in Iraq, the 2004 Asian tsunami—or inward at struggles with the self, these poems aim at the heart and against the feeling that Lucifer may have already won the day.
from “Lucifer at the Starlite”
Here’s my bright idea for life on earth:
better management. The CEO
has lost touch with the details. I’m worth
as much, but I care; I come down here, I show
my face, I’m a real regular. A toast:
To our boys and girls in the war, grinding
through sand, to everybody here, our host
who’s mostly mist, like methane rising
With both passion and precision, Lucifer at the Starlite explores life’s dual nature: good and evil, light and dark, suffering and moments of unexpected joy. Whether looking outward to events on the world stage—the war in Iraq, the 2004 Asian tsunami—or inward at struggles with the self, these poems aim at the heart and against the feeling that Lucifer may have already won the day.
from “Lucifer at the Starlite”
Here’s my bright idea for life on earth:
better management. The CEO
has lost touch with the details. I’m worth
as much, but I care; I come down here, I show
my face, I’m a real regular. A toast:
To our boys and girls in the war, grinding
through sand, to everybody here, our host
who’s mostly mist, like methane rising
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
18 people are currently reading
513 people want to read
About the author
Kim Addonizio
65 books605 followersAuthor of several poetry collections including Tell Me, a National Book Award Finalist. My Black Angel is a book of blues poems with woodcuts by Charles D. Jones, from SFA Press. The Palace of Illusions is a story collection from Counterpoint/Soft Skull. A New & Selected, Wild Nights, is out in the UK from Bloodaxe Books.
2016 publications: Mortal Trash, new poems, from W.W. Norton, awarded the Paterson Poetry Prize. A memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life, from Penguin.
Two instructional books on writing poetry: The Poet's Companion (with Dorianne Laux), and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within.
First novel, Little Beauties, was published by Simon & Schuster and chosen as "Best Book of the Month" by Book of the Month Club. My Dreams Out in the Street, second novel, released by Simon & Schuster in 2007.
A new word/music CD, "My Black Angel, "is a collaboration with several musicians and contains all the poems in the book of that name. That and an earlier word/music CD with poet Susan Browne, "Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing," available from cdbaby.com. There's an earlier book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure (FC2); and the anthology Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos,, co-edited with Cheryl Dumesnil.
I teach poetry workshops at conferences and online through my web site. I also play blues harmonica, and I'm learning jazz flute. Music is a good place to focus when I'm in a writing slump.
2016 publications: Mortal Trash, new poems, from W.W. Norton, awarded the Paterson Poetry Prize. A memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life, from Penguin.
Two instructional books on writing poetry: The Poet's Companion (with Dorianne Laux), and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within.
First novel, Little Beauties, was published by Simon & Schuster and chosen as "Best Book of the Month" by Book of the Month Club. My Dreams Out in the Street, second novel, released by Simon & Schuster in 2007.
A new word/music CD, "My Black Angel, "is a collaboration with several musicians and contains all the poems in the book of that name. That and an earlier word/music CD with poet Susan Browne, "Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing," available from cdbaby.com. There's an earlier book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure (FC2); and the anthology Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos,, co-edited with Cheryl Dumesnil.
I teach poetry workshops at conferences and online through my web site. I also play blues harmonica, and I'm learning jazz flute. Music is a good place to focus when I'm in a writing slump.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
May 28, 2016
I can't remember the last time I read poetry by choice but I read a lot of Russian poetry in college because it was assigned work, in the eighties. Ironically, these poems often reminded me of eighties alternative music. Dark, deep, different and edgy but with a determined purpose and message. This woman could be in a band. That is high praise. 4 stars.
My favorites: Feeling Sexy, News, Happiness After Grief, The Smallest Town Alive, For You, You. These titles get right to the point but the four sections of the book are quite cleverly named.
My favorites: Feeling Sexy, News, Happiness After Grief, The Smallest Town Alive, For You, You. These titles get right to the point but the four sections of the book are quite cleverly named.
June 1, 2022
There's an arrow wound in my amygdala
leaking honey into my parietal lobe.
It makes me want to say things
disallowed from serious poetry
and employ instead the lexicon of porn spam.
I want to make crude statements involving fluids.
Obscenity, expletive, body part.
Imperative verb, possessive pronoun, body part.
I want push to show up at shove's office.
I want to change my address
to last night's wet dream,
I want a plot in that cemetery.
Come and unearth me anytime.
June 27, 2016
I had just recently read my first work of Addonizio's poetry, Tell Me, a book of largely confessional poetry, a kind of howl of love and drunken passion and rage, which I loved. This one is more muted, less personal, and a little less engaging, maybe, but I still liked it a lot. The concept (of a book with Lucifer in the title) reminds me of Sharon Olds's Satan Says. Places of darkness in the world: the Iraqi wars, the Tsunami, divorce. There is intimacy, humor, compassion, and deft observation, too.
Lucifer at the Starlite
—after George Meredith
Here's my bright idea for life on earth:
better management. The CEO
has lost touch with the details. I'm worth
as much, but I care; I come down here, I show
my face, I'm a real regular. A toast:
To our boys and girls in the war, grinding
through sand, to everybody here, our host
who's mostly mist, like methane rising
from retreating ice shelves. Put me in command.
For every town, we'll have a marching band.
For each thoroughbred, a comfortable stable;
for each worker, a place beneath the table.
For every forward step a stumbling.
A shadow over every starlit thing.
Kim Addonizio
Lucifer at the Starlite
—after George Meredith
Here's my bright idea for life on earth:
better management. The CEO
has lost touch with the details. I'm worth
as much, but I care; I come down here, I show
my face, I'm a real regular. A toast:
To our boys and girls in the war, grinding
through sand, to everybody here, our host
who's mostly mist, like methane rising
from retreating ice shelves. Put me in command.
For every town, we'll have a marching band.
For each thoroughbred, a comfortable stable;
for each worker, a place beneath the table.
For every forward step a stumbling.
A shadow over every starlit thing.
Kim Addonizio
December 17, 2015
Was everything I hoped it would be. Now I need to read all of her other poetry collections.
August 22, 2017
I love kim addonizio so much I would honestly kiss her while she put out her cigarettes on my body
December 10, 2015
“Lucifer at the Starlite,” the title poem, which originally appeared in The Threepenny Review. carries the epigraph: —after George Meredith. Meredith was a major Victorian novelist (1828-1909) who also wrote poetry. Of his poetry, the best known is “Modern Love,” a 50-poem sequence of 16-line sonnets. However, one of his 14-line sonnets is called “Lucifer in Starlight.”
Meredith’s poem tells of Lucifer rising up from hell, “tired of his dark dominion,” and sweeping over the “rolling ball” of the earth, from Africa to the Arctic. He rises to somewhere between earth and the stars. The stars (called the “brain of Heaven”) remind him of natural law, which can’t be altered. In contrast to many writers of his time, who criticized or belittled science as being less valid or awesome than religious or spiritual explanations, Meredith here champions rationalism and modern science.
Addonizio’s “Lucifer at the Starlite” (also a sonnet, though the rhyme scheme differs from Meredith’s) places Lucifer in a nightclub where he asks to be put in command and offers humanity about what you might expect from him: “For every forward step a stumbling. A shadow over every starlit thing.” While God seems to be hidden from us (in another poem here, the Higher Power is AWOL), Lucifer/Satan shows his face everywhere; he’s a “real regular.” And indeed, Lucifer lurks everywhere here: the poems are filled with demons, deaths, disasters both global and close to home, depravity, brutality, and evil. And our modern-day Eve, witness to “So many little horrors” and “sore afraid,” puts on “the dress of knowledge, its dark glitter.”
The first time I read this collection (2009), I liked it far less than Tell Me and What Is This Thing Called Love?. I’m really glad I decided to reread it. My opinion this time is a lot different; I find myself much more able to appreciate its wider and darker view, its variety and range. Some of my favorite poems are “Where Childhood Went,” “The First Line is the Deepest,” “My Heart,” “Snow White: The Huntsman’s Story.”
“My Heart,” is a litany of metaphors for the heart, e.g., “That Mississippi chicken shack,” “That wilderness preserve,” and finally:
That landing strip with no runway lights
where you are aiming your plane,
imagining a voice in the tower,
imagining a tower.
I’ve always been partial to Addonizio’s blues poems and other experiments with form. Though there are no explicit blues poems in this collection, there are plenty of forms (sonnets, list poems, persona poems, anaphora), as well as free verse and prose poems. And there’s a range of subjects — including fairy tales (which we always knew were dark and violent, didn’t we?), religion, war, and world events, as well as love, sex, and relationships. Oh yes, I also love the section titles: “Happy Hour,” “Jukebox,” Dance Floor,” and “I Am Going to Have to Take Your Keys.”
I’m also really impressed with the collection as a whole, its weaving together of themes, the variety of forms, the confrontation with evil rampant in the world and with the speaker’s own demons and inner conflicts, with the ability to find moments of joy and a glimmer of hope despite depressing events of contemporary life: those “little victories / over a sullen god.”
Meredith’s poem tells of Lucifer rising up from hell, “tired of his dark dominion,” and sweeping over the “rolling ball” of the earth, from Africa to the Arctic. He rises to somewhere between earth and the stars. The stars (called the “brain of Heaven”) remind him of natural law, which can’t be altered. In contrast to many writers of his time, who criticized or belittled science as being less valid or awesome than religious or spiritual explanations, Meredith here champions rationalism and modern science.
Addonizio’s “Lucifer at the Starlite” (also a sonnet, though the rhyme scheme differs from Meredith’s) places Lucifer in a nightclub where he asks to be put in command and offers humanity about what you might expect from him: “For every forward step a stumbling. A shadow over every starlit thing.” While God seems to be hidden from us (in another poem here, the Higher Power is AWOL), Lucifer/Satan shows his face everywhere; he’s a “real regular.” And indeed, Lucifer lurks everywhere here: the poems are filled with demons, deaths, disasters both global and close to home, depravity, brutality, and evil. And our modern-day Eve, witness to “So many little horrors” and “sore afraid,” puts on “the dress of knowledge, its dark glitter.”
The first time I read this collection (2009), I liked it far less than Tell Me and What Is This Thing Called Love?. I’m really glad I decided to reread it. My opinion this time is a lot different; I find myself much more able to appreciate its wider and darker view, its variety and range. Some of my favorite poems are “Where Childhood Went,” “The First Line is the Deepest,” “My Heart,” “Snow White: The Huntsman’s Story.”
“My Heart,” is a litany of metaphors for the heart, e.g., “That Mississippi chicken shack,” “That wilderness preserve,” and finally:
That landing strip with no runway lights
where you are aiming your plane,
imagining a voice in the tower,
imagining a tower.
I’ve always been partial to Addonizio’s blues poems and other experiments with form. Though there are no explicit blues poems in this collection, there are plenty of forms (sonnets, list poems, persona poems, anaphora), as well as free verse and prose poems. And there’s a range of subjects — including fairy tales (which we always knew were dark and violent, didn’t we?), religion, war, and world events, as well as love, sex, and relationships. Oh yes, I also love the section titles: “Happy Hour,” “Jukebox,” Dance Floor,” and “I Am Going to Have to Take Your Keys.”
I’m also really impressed with the collection as a whole, its weaving together of themes, the variety of forms, the confrontation with evil rampant in the world and with the speaker’s own demons and inner conflicts, with the ability to find moments of joy and a glimmer of hope despite depressing events of contemporary life: those “little victories / over a sullen god.”
June 2, 2025
“i wanted to put my mouth on you and draw out whatever toxin… but i understand. There are limits to love.”
April 19, 2016
Okay, I'm experimenting with a different approach to writing reviews. I actually made notes as I read this! It helps that I didn't start with a novel which is longer and can't be read in one sitting (normally. Depends on me mood know what I mean?). I've broken down this review into categories. There were poems that I finished reading and I was automatically like "favorite!" and others I liked but was unsure about. So without that explained. You may begin maestro...
Favorites
What I noticed about my poems from this list and that they all were about relationships or love in some way. I believe Ms. Addonizio is great about writing about the downside of love, etc. My favorites in this category were:
For You
Forms of Love
You With The Crack Running Through You
Crossing
Suite pour les Amour Perdus
Tough to Read
When I say tough I don't mean in syntax or it didn't make sense. I mean the subject matter hit very close to home. I recently lost my grandmother and one of the poems that landed in this category, There Seems No Way to Get At It just really hit me. It's like why did you wait so long to ask important questions like what's your favorite color grandma? I knew my grandma, but I didn't know her.
Poems in this category:
Easeful Death
There Seems to Be Not to Get At It
Malice
Like But Not Love
Do you ever read something and you're like: I really, really liked that but I didn't quite love it. It has bits and pieces that you honest to God loved, but other bits that you didn't care for? Sort of like a 3.5-star rating on a book.
In this category
Storm Catechism
The First Line is The Deepest
The Smallest Town Alive
Laugh About It Poems
I love to laugh. But when it comes to my poetry reading tastes I don't often do it so I had to make note of this.
Poems in this category:
Book Burning
God Olde
And finally the last but very important one.
Poems That Make Me Think
These poems made stop and go damn. Especially Semper from this category. I've never really thought of Ms. Addonizio as a political poet, but now I see she writes about an entire spectrum of things. Considering when this book was released (in 2004 three years after 9/11) it was a topic that was everywhere. Semper starts like her other poetry and I wasn't expecting what I got, but it made me think about war and how it relates to masculinity.
Poems in this category
Semper
Half Blind Elegies
Ms. Addonizio is rapidly becoming one of my favorite poets. I can by the fact by how excited I was that not only was she releasing a new book of poems, but a memoir. Oh yes, I love a good biography! I can't wait to read both.
Favorites
What I noticed about my poems from this list and that they all were about relationships or love in some way. I believe Ms. Addonizio is great about writing about the downside of love, etc. My favorites in this category were:
For You
Forms of Love
You With The Crack Running Through You
Crossing
Suite pour les Amour Perdus
Tough to Read
When I say tough I don't mean in syntax or it didn't make sense. I mean the subject matter hit very close to home. I recently lost my grandmother and one of the poems that landed in this category, There Seems No Way to Get At It just really hit me. It's like why did you wait so long to ask important questions like what's your favorite color grandma? I knew my grandma, but I didn't know her.
Poems in this category:
Easeful Death
There Seems to Be Not to Get At It
Malice
Like But Not Love
Do you ever read something and you're like: I really, really liked that but I didn't quite love it. It has bits and pieces that you honest to God loved, but other bits that you didn't care for? Sort of like a 3.5-star rating on a book.
In this category
Storm Catechism
The First Line is The Deepest
The Smallest Town Alive
Laugh About It Poems
I love to laugh. But when it comes to my poetry reading tastes I don't often do it so I had to make note of this.
Poems in this category:
Book Burning
God Olde
And finally the last but very important one.
Poems That Make Me Think
These poems made stop and go damn. Especially Semper from this category. I've never really thought of Ms. Addonizio as a political poet, but now I see she writes about an entire spectrum of things. Considering when this book was released (in 2004 three years after 9/11) it was a topic that was everywhere. Semper starts like her other poetry and I wasn't expecting what I got, but it made me think about war and how it relates to masculinity.
Poems in this category
Semper
Half Blind Elegies
Ms. Addonizio is rapidly becoming one of my favorite poets. I can by the fact by how excited I was that not only was she releasing a new book of poems, but a memoir. Oh yes, I love a good biography! I can't wait to read both.
April 9, 2021
The Matter
Some men break your heart in two…
—DOROTHY PARKER,
“Experience”
Some men carry you to bed with your boots on.
Some men say your name like a verbal tic.
Some men slap on an emotional surcharge for every erotic
encounter.
Some men are slightly mentally ill, and thinking of joining a
gym.
Some men have moved on and can’t be seduced, even in the
dream bars where you meet them.
Some men who were younger are now the age you were then.
Some men aren’t content with mere breakage, they’ve got to burn
you to the ground.
Some men you’ve reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves
off.
Some men are made of fiberglass.
Some men have deep holes drilled in by a war, you can’t fill
them.
Some men are delicate and torn.
Some men will steal your bracelet if you let them spend the
night.
Some men will want to fuck your poems, and instead they will
find you.
Some men will say, “I’d like to see how you look when you
come,” and then hail a cab.
Some men are a list of ingredients with no recipe.
Some men never see you.
Some men will blindfold you during sex, then secretly put on
high heels.
Some men will try on your black fishnet stockings in a hotel in
Rome, or Saran Wrap you to a bedpost in New Orleans.
Some of these men will be worth trying to keep.
Some men will write obtuse, condescending reviews of your
work, making you remember these lines by Frank O’Hara:
I cannot possibly think of you / other than you are: the assassin / of my
orchards.
Some men, let’s face it, really are too small.
Some men are too large, but it’s not usually a deal breaker.
Some men don’t have one at all.
Some men will slap you in a way you’ll like.
Some men will want to crawl inside you to die.
Some men never clean up the matter.
Some men hand you their hearts like leaflets,
and some men’s hearts seem to circle forever: you catch sight of
them on clear nights,
bright dots among the stars, and wait for their orbits to decay, for
them to fall to earth.
Some men break your heart in two…
—DOROTHY PARKER,
“Experience”
Some men carry you to bed with your boots on.
Some men say your name like a verbal tic.
Some men slap on an emotional surcharge for every erotic
encounter.
Some men are slightly mentally ill, and thinking of joining a
gym.
Some men have moved on and can’t be seduced, even in the
dream bars where you meet them.
Some men who were younger are now the age you were then.
Some men aren’t content with mere breakage, they’ve got to burn
you to the ground.
Some men you’ve reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves
off.
Some men are made of fiberglass.
Some men have deep holes drilled in by a war, you can’t fill
them.
Some men are delicate and torn.
Some men will steal your bracelet if you let them spend the
night.
Some men will want to fuck your poems, and instead they will
find you.
Some men will say, “I’d like to see how you look when you
come,” and then hail a cab.
Some men are a list of ingredients with no recipe.
Some men never see you.
Some men will blindfold you during sex, then secretly put on
high heels.
Some men will try on your black fishnet stockings in a hotel in
Rome, or Saran Wrap you to a bedpost in New Orleans.
Some of these men will be worth trying to keep.
Some men will write obtuse, condescending reviews of your
work, making you remember these lines by Frank O’Hara:
I cannot possibly think of you / other than you are: the assassin / of my
orchards.
Some men, let’s face it, really are too small.
Some men are too large, but it’s not usually a deal breaker.
Some men don’t have one at all.
Some men will slap you in a way you’ll like.
Some men will want to crawl inside you to die.
Some men never clean up the matter.
Some men hand you their hearts like leaflets,
and some men’s hearts seem to circle forever: you catch sight of
them on clear nights,
bright dots among the stars, and wait for their orbits to decay, for
them to fall to earth.
June 27, 2015
I picked this up at the perfect time. Addonizio kicked my feet out from under me so many times in this book. My eyes did not fill with tears, rather she tore gasping, choking sobs from me with her words. This is one for the permanent collection.
December 7, 2022
This is quite a beautiful collection of poems. I love her voice and honest words - incredibly and fervently honest. She is a poet I'll read again. "Feeling Sexy" is a must-read.
May 14, 2010
This book was frustratingly inconsistent. At its worst, the poems felt familiar in the wrong way, covering ground Addonizio has covered many times before. In some places, especially early on, some forms felt forced, which surprised me, because it's not something I've ever thought about her work. About halfway through, though, something seemed to click for me as a reader. The poems felt fresher, closer, and more desperate. Many poems in the second half of the book build off of the loneliness that resonated through her previous collection Tell Me and I found myself liking many of them enough to reread them a few times right away. If only the entire collection had been that good--I would have been giving it a higher rating.
October 8, 2016
I am enamored with Addonizio's work! Brilliant, fierce, gritty, truth that hits the interior. Here is part of one of the poems in this collection titled 'Another Day on Earth' –Tsunami, Dec. 26, 2004
'Souls were arriving, souls were departing
amid the usual screaming and crying.
A lot of drinks were being tossed back,
a lot of women were thinking about their hair.
People were loving the quiet as snow fell,
burying the cars. More than one man
was thinking about his penis. Birds were landing
on statues, birds were snapping up insects...."
Never ceases to blow me away! LOVE!
'Souls were arriving, souls were departing
amid the usual screaming and crying.
A lot of drinks were being tossed back,
a lot of women were thinking about their hair.
People were loving the quiet as snow fell,
burying the cars. More than one man
was thinking about his penis. Birds were landing
on statues, birds were snapping up insects...."
Never ceases to blow me away! LOVE!
January 16, 2012
This review has been revised and can now be seen at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
November 22, 2017
I saw this collection described as a tuna can lid slicing your wrist, and I'd say that's pretty accurate. If that description sounds engaging and moving, then you will probably love this poetry. If that description sounds ... well, NOT engaging, then you probably won't like this poetry.
For me, this didn't work. These poems are superficially profound, but lacking in any personal impact or reflection. If you're familiar with the term "Ally Theater" - I found a lot of that in here. She means well, perhaps, but I feel like she's firing off with thinking or feeling.
Often the poems feel manipulative, including shocking imagery for effect, like a "tweenager" cursing, just to shock the grown-ups. These poems are just a little too much like acting out, wanting us to think she is a tough, sexy woman who hangs with abusive men and shoots up heroin and lolls about half-naked in a motorcycle club somewhere, because she thinks all of those things are romantic in some twisted way, and her real life is dull and not worth writing about. But I stopped thinking that stuff was romantic quite a few decades ago. I want to read about real life.
This poem, from the last section, is a good example. There is needless violence (another beheading) that feels like it's there just for effect, not from a heartfelt emotion. There is gratuitous sexual imagery; she uses this a lot, and it just doesn't work for me, it kind of launches itself up out of the poem, completely stops the flow of the words, and shrieks look at MEEEEEEEeeeee! I HAVE TWO COCKS!!!. But I don't want to look at your two cocks. That's not what I'm here for. And, worst of all, there is false information. No, pelicans do NOT go blind from diving. If only she had written this more like "when I was a little girl, I was told ... " but she doesn't, she lays it out there as a fact but it's not a fact, it's a myth. That grinds my gears.
Some of the poems, such as "For You" and "You Were," probably would have appealed to me when I was college-age.
I know that Addonizio is very popular, and a lot of people find her work to be brutally honest and fearless and heartfelt. It just didn't work for me. I can't write poetry well either. What I'm looking for when I read poetry is someone who writes better than I do.
But every now and then, I would turn the page and find a poem that worked. These poems were the best of the bunch, for me:
For me, this didn't work. These poems are superficially profound, but lacking in any personal impact or reflection. If you're familiar with the term "Ally Theater" - I found a lot of that in here. She means well, perhaps, but I feel like she's firing off with thinking or feeling.
Often the poems feel manipulative, including shocking imagery for effect, like a "tweenager" cursing, just to shock the grown-ups. These poems are just a little too much like acting out, wanting us to think she is a tough, sexy woman who hangs with abusive men and shoots up heroin and lolls about half-naked in a motorcycle club somewhere, because she thinks all of those things are romantic in some twisted way, and her real life is dull and not worth writing about. But I stopped thinking that stuff was romantic quite a few decades ago. I want to read about real life.
This poem, from the last section, is a good example. There is needless violence (another beheading) that feels like it's there just for effect, not from a heartfelt emotion. There is gratuitous sexual imagery; she uses this a lot, and it just doesn't work for me, it kind of launches itself up out of the poem, completely stops the flow of the words, and shrieks look at MEEEEEEEeeeee! I HAVE TWO COCKS!!!. But I don't want to look at your two cocks. That's not what I'm here for. And, worst of all, there is false information. No, pelicans do NOT go blind from diving. If only she had written this more like "when I was a little girl, I was told ... " but she doesn't, she lays it out there as a fact but it's not a fact, it's a myth. That grinds my gears.
Half-Blind Elegy
So many little horrors,
so many flashing lights.
One among the many is beheaded.
Hail, the world is with me.
And I am sore afraid.
One is stopped on the road, and made to kneel…
Why look.
Because I exist (opening his leathery wings).
I have a fantasy: being tied down on an altar, a great winged creature coming down over me. Instead of a tongue it has a second cock, it fills me twice, it locks me to itself.
I put on the dress of knowledge, its dark glitter—
I admire myself in the mirror—
One is strung up, one is strung.
That song.
* * *
In the evening, in the scattering light, pelicans
fly over the slough
and dive down for fish, one eye open
one eye closed. So when they hit the water
the open eye
takes the impact, and eventually goes blind.
And then they use the other eye,
and then they are truly blind, and die.
Is that how the angels dive for souls?
So many memories in the heavens, love.
So many flinchings here below.
Stay with me. Make me calm.
Another breaks the surface and is gone.
Some of the poems, such as "For You" and "You Were," probably would have appealed to me when I was college-age.
For You
For you I undress down to the sheaths of my nerves.
I remove my jewelry and set it on the nightstand,
I unhook my ribs, spread my lungs flat on a chair.
I dissolve like a remedy in water, in wine.
I spill without staining, and leave without stirring the air.
I do it for love. For love, I disappear.
You Were
the bride of gin, bride
of men you followed home & let fuck you
only to discover that they already had a woman,
a woman who would never know
what you had done with her man, never
know what a shit she was married to, you were
enamored of impulse, tearing flower heads from sidewalk squares
that had converted from cement
to soil. How pure your longing
to be anything other than yourself. How difficult
to extricate the stem, to hold only the scattering,
brooding petals
& how you longed for that stem. Little former whore,
self-you-have-almost-outgrown, think
of Clytia, pining for Apollo, her whole face turned
toward an idea of heaven. Think
of the faces turned toward you now, as you recite
from the myth you have made,
all of them listening
to you. Of all flowers: you.
I know that Addonizio is very popular, and a lot of people find her work to be brutally honest and fearless and heartfelt. It just didn't work for me. I can't write poetry well either. What I'm looking for when I read poetry is someone who writes better than I do.
But every now and then, I would turn the page and find a poem that worked. These poems were the best of the bunch, for me:
Where Childhood Went
The teeth sold to the fairies
are tombstones in the graveyard of the fireflies.
By their cold caught light
you can make out the big house submerged
in the backyard creek,
thought-minnows spinning in motes in the attic.
The lovely young parents, so long preserved,
are showing signs of rot;
the kitten named Princess, signs
of invisibility. But look, the old dolls
are doing well; they smile and smile.
And the witch? Darling, the witch was real.
Forms of Love
I love you but I'm married.
I love you but I wish you had more hair.
I love you more.
I love you more like a friend.
I love your friends more than you.
I love how when we go into a mall and classical muzak is playing, you can always name the composer.
I love you, but one or both of us is/are fictional.
I love you but "I" am an unstable signifier.
I love you saying, "I understand the semiotics of that" when I said, "I had a little personal business to take care of."
I love you as long as you love me back.
I love you in spite of the restraining order.
I love you from the coma you put me in.
I love you more than I've ever loved anyone, except for this one guy.
I love you when you're not getting drunk and stupid.
I love how you get me.
I love your pain, it's so competitive.
I love how emotionally unavailable you are.
I love you like I'm a strange backyard and you're running from the cops, looking for a place to stash your gun.
I love your hair.
I love you but I'm just not that into you.
I love you secretly.
I love how you make me feel like I'm a monastery in the desert.
I love how you defined grace as the little turn the blood in the syringe takes when you're shooting heroin, after you pull back the plunger slightly to make sure you hit the vein.
I love your mother, she's the opposite of mine.
I love you and feel a powerful spiritual connection to you, even though we've never met.
I love your tacos! I love your stick deodorant!
I love it when you tie me up with ropes using the knots you learned in Boy Scouts, and when you do the stoned Dennis Hopper rap from Apocalypse Now!
I love your extravagant double takes!
I love your mother, even though I'm nearly her age!
I love everything about you except your hair.
If it weren't for that I know I could really, really love you
The Matter
Some men break your heart in two…
—Dorothy Parker, "Experience"
Some men carry you to bed with your boots on.
Some men say your name like a verbal tic.
Some men slap on an emotional surcharge for every erotic encounter.
Some men are slightly mentally ill, and thinking of joining a gym.
Some men have moved on and can’t be seduced, even in the dream bars you meet them in.
Some men who were younger are now the age you were then.
Some men aren’t content with mere breakage, they’ve got to burn you to the ground.
Some men you’ve reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves off.
Some men are made of fiberglass.
Some men have deep holes drilled in by war, you can’t fill them.
Some men are delicate and torn.
Some men will steal your bracelet if you let them spend the night.
Some men will want to fuck your poems, and instead they find you.
Some men will say, "I’d like to see how you look when you come," and then hail a cab.
Some men are a list of ingredients with no recipe.
Some men never see you.
Some men will blindfold you during sex, then secretly put on heels.
Some men will try on your black fishnet stockings in a hotel in Rome, or Saran Wrap you to a bedpost in New Orleans.
Some of these men will be worth trying to keep.
Some men will write smugly condescending reviews of you work, making you remember these lines by Frank O’hara:
I cannot possibly think of you/other than you: the assassin/of my orchards.
Some men, let’s face it, really are too small.
Some men are too large, but it’s not usually a deal breaker.
Some men don’t have one at all.
Some men will slap you in a way you’ll like.
Some men will want to crawl inside you to die.
Some men never clean up the matter.
Some men hand you their hearts like leaflets
and some men’s hearts seem to circle forever: you catch sight of them on clear nights,
bright dots among the stars, and wait for their orbits to decay, for them to fall to earth.
February 21, 2023
To the Ground
by Philip Habecker
"Some men aren't content with mere breakage, they've got to burn you to the ground."
-The Matter
"there goes the slim paperback my friend Susan and I / relegated to her fireplace last night after drinking too much Sancerre / and saying things like, God I hate this guy's poems..."
-Book Burning
"Some men will write obtuse, condescending reviews of your / work, making you remember these lines by Frank O'Hara: / I cannot possibly think of you / other than you are: the assassin / of my orchards."
-The Matter
There will be no burning here
No purple parent gauntlet thrown down
in the library across the street where Billy Collin's dog
went silent on page 49.
Issued a challenge for "YOU WERE the bride of gin, bride
off men you followed home & let fuck you"
Issued a challenge for "Then came the panties and nylons,"
For, "and my grown-up friend doing Ecstasy in the desert,"
A metal glove. A floor.
A new challenge issued: leave it the fuck alone and fuck off
Allow the bibliotech to biblio
I bask in the inevitability of the next best thing
Of ChatGPT and fucking robots*
that have A.I.ed themselves into pointless circles
What did Lucifer think he was at, anyway?
Another obtuse man critiquing some goddess's creation
by Philip Habecker
"Some men aren't content with mere breakage, they've got to burn you to the ground."
-The Matter
"there goes the slim paperback my friend Susan and I / relegated to her fireplace last night after drinking too much Sancerre / and saying things like, God I hate this guy's poems..."
-Book Burning
"Some men will write obtuse, condescending reviews of your / work, making you remember these lines by Frank O'Hara: / I cannot possibly think of you / other than you are: the assassin / of my orchards."
-The Matter
There will be no burning here
No purple parent gauntlet thrown down
in the library across the street where Billy Collin's dog
went silent on page 49.
Issued a challenge for "YOU WERE the bride of gin, bride
off men you followed home & let fuck you"
Issued a challenge for "Then came the panties and nylons,"
For, "and my grown-up friend doing Ecstasy in the desert,"
A metal glove. A floor.
A new challenge issued: leave it the fuck alone and fuck off
Allow the bibliotech to biblio
I bask in the inevitability of the next best thing
Of ChatGPT and fucking robots*
that have A.I.ed themselves into pointless circles
What did Lucifer think he was at, anyway?
Another obtuse man critiquing some goddess's creation
April 6, 2019
Feeling Sexy
There’s an arrow wound in my amygdala
leaking honey into my parietal lobe.
It makes me want to say things
disallowed from serious poetry
and employ instead the lexicon of porn spam.
I want to make crude statements involving fluids.
Obscenity, expletive, body part.
Imperative verb, possessive pronoun, body part.
I want push to show up at shove’s office.
I want to change my address
to last night’s wet dream,
I want a plot in that cemetery.
Come and unearth me anytime.
***
For You
For you I undress down to the sheaths of my nerves.
I remove my jewelry and set it on the nightstand,
I unhook my ribs, spread my lungs flat on a chair.
I dissolve like a remedy in water, in wine.
I spill without staining, and leave without stirring the air.
I do it for love. For love, I disappear.
***
There’s an arrow wound in my amygdala
leaking honey into my parietal lobe.
It makes me want to say things
disallowed from serious poetry
and employ instead the lexicon of porn spam.
I want to make crude statements involving fluids.
Obscenity, expletive, body part.
Imperative verb, possessive pronoun, body part.
I want push to show up at shove’s office.
I want to change my address
to last night’s wet dream,
I want a plot in that cemetery.
Come and unearth me anytime.
***
For You
For you I undress down to the sheaths of my nerves.
I remove my jewelry and set it on the nightstand,
I unhook my ribs, spread my lungs flat on a chair.
I dissolve like a remedy in water, in wine.
I spill without staining, and leave without stirring the air.
I do it for love. For love, I disappear.
***
April 7, 2021
This collection was a little less personal and a lot more calculated than what Addonizio usually writes, or at least what I've read from her so far. It's a little detached from the reasons why I fell in love with her writing, however, I still love and respect Addonizio and I thoroughly enjoyed this book by the end of it. It feels like she was trying to change the pace and at times it felt experimental, but that's why I liked it. Addonizio knows how to push the boundaries of what poetry could be and I respect the attempt.
December 23, 2021
The Matter y Happiness After Grief me llegaron mucho 💔 (aunque, he leído mejores poemarios, la verdad tenía más expectativas).
January 31, 2022
Fantastic collection of poems.
January 27, 2024
In the lonely universe may be one of my favorite poems ever
October 13, 2024
i fear the "come and unearth me anytime" line changed my brain chemistry
September 11, 2020
Not my most favorite of her work. But Kim is my girl through and through.
March 16, 2017
a decent collection of quirky and crazy ramblings
October 3, 2011
Dances with Devils
Lucifer at the Starlite by Kim Addonizio. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2009.
If one is looking for a book of marshmallow happy ending poems, you should keep looking. However if you are interested in a collection of raw unpolished poems; Kim Addonizio’s Lucifer at the Starlite is an excellent choice. Addonizio approaches both personal and political subjects with a darkened perspective. The view is that of evil being an influential and controlling force in our lives. The title of the book correlates to her poem “Lucifer at the Starlite” in which the devil is put in command of life on earth.
Some readers might find the poems to be too depressing in nature, like “The Burning,” in which the author communicates their bitterness towards their brother, “And I hate him/ as I always have/ with great purity of feeling.” But without a doubt Addonizio writes with a great level of intimacy, following a pursuit for her own identity; like in “My Heart.” “My Heart” relates various images to the character of her heart; “That phone booth with the receiver ripped out. / That dressing room in the fetish boutique.”
Kim uses no filter in finding herself through a junkyard of past lovers and family problems; she often uses socially tabooed words like “porn”, “blow job” and “fuck.” The uses of such references display the author as being troubled and relatable. Kim openly voices troubling disturbances that many readers face. In her poem “God Ode” she declares her resentment towards God for Him allowing evil to persist; “Praise having a body to be unhappy in, suffering the slings and staring unbelieving at the arrows.
In the lines of her poems, Addonizio displays both skill and knowledge of structure and technique. She uses a multitude of forms from the block prose of “Hansel” to the witty spaced triplets of “Sui.” Kim keeps things flowing softly with the use of internal rhyme and slant rhymes, enjambments and caesuras. She also creates original and specific images such as “You were the two insect parts per million allowed in peanut butter” and “clean sweat and grapefruit.” However I was slightly disappointed with the repetition of a few images, of which being “a dog,” the succession of this image gave the impression that I was reading a previous poem over again.
Kim uses some social references such as “Chet Baker” and “Celexa” that might cause certain readers to lose connection to the piece if they do not have a previous understanding. Other references like that of “Merrily” and “Snow White: The Huntsman’s Story” were extremely entertaining. They provided a new twist on tradition stories graphically insisting “When I took the lung and liver/ they were still warm. I brought them/ bloody in a bag to the queen.”
Overall Kim Addonizio is a deeply gifted writer, who is able to convey internal frustrations with sensuality and imagination. You will find a compassion for her though her ponderings and occasional bitter rant. By viewing the world with Lucifer at the Starlite, one might be able to find incredible wisdom; contrasting the darkness of a world with its light.
Lucifer at the Starlite by Kim Addonizio. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2009.
If one is looking for a book of marshmallow happy ending poems, you should keep looking. However if you are interested in a collection of raw unpolished poems; Kim Addonizio’s Lucifer at the Starlite is an excellent choice. Addonizio approaches both personal and political subjects with a darkened perspective. The view is that of evil being an influential and controlling force in our lives. The title of the book correlates to her poem “Lucifer at the Starlite” in which the devil is put in command of life on earth.
Some readers might find the poems to be too depressing in nature, like “The Burning,” in which the author communicates their bitterness towards their brother, “And I hate him/ as I always have/ with great purity of feeling.” But without a doubt Addonizio writes with a great level of intimacy, following a pursuit for her own identity; like in “My Heart.” “My Heart” relates various images to the character of her heart; “That phone booth with the receiver ripped out. / That dressing room in the fetish boutique.”
Kim uses no filter in finding herself through a junkyard of past lovers and family problems; she often uses socially tabooed words like “porn”, “blow job” and “fuck.” The uses of such references display the author as being troubled and relatable. Kim openly voices troubling disturbances that many readers face. In her poem “God Ode” she declares her resentment towards God for Him allowing evil to persist; “Praise having a body to be unhappy in, suffering the slings and staring unbelieving at the arrows.
In the lines of her poems, Addonizio displays both skill and knowledge of structure and technique. She uses a multitude of forms from the block prose of “Hansel” to the witty spaced triplets of “Sui.” Kim keeps things flowing softly with the use of internal rhyme and slant rhymes, enjambments and caesuras. She also creates original and specific images such as “You were the two insect parts per million allowed in peanut butter” and “clean sweat and grapefruit.” However I was slightly disappointed with the repetition of a few images, of which being “a dog,” the succession of this image gave the impression that I was reading a previous poem over again.
Kim uses some social references such as “Chet Baker” and “Celexa” that might cause certain readers to lose connection to the piece if they do not have a previous understanding. Other references like that of “Merrily” and “Snow White: The Huntsman’s Story” were extremely entertaining. They provided a new twist on tradition stories graphically insisting “When I took the lung and liver/ they were still warm. I brought them/ bloody in a bag to the queen.”
Overall Kim Addonizio is a deeply gifted writer, who is able to convey internal frustrations with sensuality and imagination. You will find a compassion for her though her ponderings and occasional bitter rant. By viewing the world with Lucifer at the Starlite, one might be able to find incredible wisdom; contrasting the darkness of a world with its light.
October 4, 2011
Good and Evil Go Hand in Hand
Lucifer at the Starlite
by Kim Addonizio
Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc, 2011
“For every forward step a stumbling.
A shadow over every starlit thing.”
These lines from Addonizio’s poem “Lucifer at the Starlite,” perfectly sum up the collection of poetry within her fifth published book of poetry, Lucifer at the Starlite. Addonizio dives into the complexities of opposite ends: good and bad, happiness and sadness, love and loss, by delivering them with an edgy and witty tone. For every good there is a bad, and for every bad there is some good.
Death is a serious matter and although she is sometimes solemn about it, for instance, in her “Another Day on Earth,” a poem about the Tsunami of December 2004, Addonizio more often than not turns death into a sardonic icon. She is scathing in death, with the most cheerful personality in her “September 11” poem, inhabiting everyday people’s lives that go on their merry ways without thinking about the people who have died:
“My mother’s friend Annie, her funeral’s today!
The writer Iris Chang, she just shot herself!
And Arafat, he’s dead, too!"
There is give and take evident within Addonizo’s poems. One poem titled “The Matter” exemplifies what we continue to do to each other as human beings, that it is a vicious circle of hurting one another that never stops:
“Some men aren’t content with mere breakage, they’ve got to burn
you to the ground.
Some men you’ve reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves
off.”
Another poem from the book titled, “Forms of Love,” also demonstrates another type of human behavior, and it’s about how picky and loose we are when giving out our love. Addonizio’s humorous examples of why we love and don’t love someone make it all that more enjoyable because at least everyone has experienced some type of the love described:
“I love you but I’m married.
I love you but I wish you had more hair.
I love you more.”
Within one of her poems, “The First Line is the Deepest,” Addonizio tries to make sense of a world that has turned into madness, all in the name of God:
“For I am a poet. It is my job, my duty
to know wherein lies the beauty
of this degraded body,”
Not everything is centered on the morbid; Addonizio also focuses on triumphs made throughout the day, no matter how small or substantial, to show that there are reasons worth being alive for in her poem “News.” She finds pleasure from even completing the most mundane tasks like laundry, because she actually accomplished something and didn’t let sadness or grief overtake her:
“These were little victories
over a sullen god – the one who hunkers down
and rocks back and forth, muttering
that there’s no good reason to go on.”
Overall Addonizio gives a good balance of joy and sadness throughout her collection, and definitely a new, sometimes humorous, perspective on things such as death, happiness after grief, twists on fairy tale endings, war, book burnings, love and much more.
Lucifer at the Starlite
by Kim Addonizio
Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc, 2011
“For every forward step a stumbling.
A shadow over every starlit thing.”
These lines from Addonizio’s poem “Lucifer at the Starlite,” perfectly sum up the collection of poetry within her fifth published book of poetry, Lucifer at the Starlite. Addonizio dives into the complexities of opposite ends: good and bad, happiness and sadness, love and loss, by delivering them with an edgy and witty tone. For every good there is a bad, and for every bad there is some good.
Death is a serious matter and although she is sometimes solemn about it, for instance, in her “Another Day on Earth,” a poem about the Tsunami of December 2004, Addonizio more often than not turns death into a sardonic icon. She is scathing in death, with the most cheerful personality in her “September 11” poem, inhabiting everyday people’s lives that go on their merry ways without thinking about the people who have died:
“My mother’s friend Annie, her funeral’s today!
The writer Iris Chang, she just shot herself!
And Arafat, he’s dead, too!"
There is give and take evident within Addonizo’s poems. One poem titled “The Matter” exemplifies what we continue to do to each other as human beings, that it is a vicious circle of hurting one another that never stops:
“Some men aren’t content with mere breakage, they’ve got to burn
you to the ground.
Some men you’ve reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves
off.”
Another poem from the book titled, “Forms of Love,” also demonstrates another type of human behavior, and it’s about how picky and loose we are when giving out our love. Addonizio’s humorous examples of why we love and don’t love someone make it all that more enjoyable because at least everyone has experienced some type of the love described:
“I love you but I’m married.
I love you but I wish you had more hair.
I love you more.”
Within one of her poems, “The First Line is the Deepest,” Addonizio tries to make sense of a world that has turned into madness, all in the name of God:
“For I am a poet. It is my job, my duty
to know wherein lies the beauty
of this degraded body,”
Not everything is centered on the morbid; Addonizio also focuses on triumphs made throughout the day, no matter how small or substantial, to show that there are reasons worth being alive for in her poem “News.” She finds pleasure from even completing the most mundane tasks like laundry, because she actually accomplished something and didn’t let sadness or grief overtake her:
“These were little victories
over a sullen god – the one who hunkers down
and rocks back and forth, muttering
that there’s no good reason to go on.”
Overall Addonizio gives a good balance of joy and sadness throughout her collection, and definitely a new, sometimes humorous, perspective on things such as death, happiness after grief, twists on fairy tale endings, war, book burnings, love and much more.
September 25, 2010
Kim Addonizio likes a declarative line, & one of the great pleasures in reading LUCIFER AT STARLITE, her latest collection of poems, is to see her bring that line to its sharpest focus, while losing none of her free-swinging American swagger. A number of witty standouts (oh say, "Yes," "You," "Forms of Love," "The Matter") works as strings of brief sentences. Lines can play smart tricks on each other, as in:
"Some men aren't content with mere breakage, they've got to burn you to the ground.
Some men you've reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves off."
But whatever the interplay between pieces, such poems always amount to a whole; they arrive at a hardboiled wisdom -- hardboiled, & then diced & mixed with mayo & celery & served on chewy rye. I mean that, even when Addonizio turns reflective & serious during LUCIFER's final section, as in "God Ode" or "In the Evening" (a lovely & hurting meditation on taking care of an aging mother), she never strays into the precious. She never betrays the brass-in-pocket worldliness of the woman who seems a model for her, namely, Dorothy Parker. Nonetheless, in LUCIFER this poem's disappointed toughness allows room for a lot of the larger world, more than ever in her career. The opener, "November 11th," riffs side-of-the-mouth & street-smart on all the day's dead, then loses some of its lightheartedness as it meditates on Iraqi & American dead, then abruptly arrives at a loss more chilling because more close to home:
"I almost forgot my neighbor's niece, 16 and puking
in Kaiser Emergency, the cause a big mystery
until the autopsy -- toxic shock syndrome,
of all things -- I thought that was history, too,
but I guess girls are still dying; who knew! I run..."
That "who knew!" & "I run," tying the tragedy back into the everyday, accords the verse the balance that's so winning throughout; it bears up the unbearable. So too Addonizio's witty catalogues of romantic breakups & mental breakdowns (& bodily breakdowns as well, like that mother's) never come free of their heartache. "Verities" may toy with the delicious cracked syntax of Paul Muldoon, but it includes "Sticks & stones will break you," & concludes with "The darkest hour comes." Then there are the names of the book's sections -- 4 sections, an arrangement that contributed to the sneaking, satisfying balance -- 1) "Happy Hour," 2) "Jukebox," 3) "Dance Floor," & 4) "I Am Going to Have to Take Your Keys." LUCIFER AT THE STARLITE is a great night out, all the greater for the hangover it leaves burning in our reawakened nerves.
"Some men aren't content with mere breakage, they've got to burn you to the ground.
Some men you've reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves off."
But whatever the interplay between pieces, such poems always amount to a whole; they arrive at a hardboiled wisdom -- hardboiled, & then diced & mixed with mayo & celery & served on chewy rye. I mean that, even when Addonizio turns reflective & serious during LUCIFER's final section, as in "God Ode" or "In the Evening" (a lovely & hurting meditation on taking care of an aging mother), she never strays into the precious. She never betrays the brass-in-pocket worldliness of the woman who seems a model for her, namely, Dorothy Parker. Nonetheless, in LUCIFER this poem's disappointed toughness allows room for a lot of the larger world, more than ever in her career. The opener, "November 11th," riffs side-of-the-mouth & street-smart on all the day's dead, then loses some of its lightheartedness as it meditates on Iraqi & American dead, then abruptly arrives at a loss more chilling because more close to home:
"I almost forgot my neighbor's niece, 16 and puking
in Kaiser Emergency, the cause a big mystery
until the autopsy -- toxic shock syndrome,
of all things -- I thought that was history, too,
but I guess girls are still dying; who knew! I run..."
That "who knew!" & "I run," tying the tragedy back into the everyday, accords the verse the balance that's so winning throughout; it bears up the unbearable. So too Addonizio's witty catalogues of romantic breakups & mental breakdowns (& bodily breakdowns as well, like that mother's) never come free of their heartache. "Verities" may toy with the delicious cracked syntax of Paul Muldoon, but it includes "Sticks & stones will break you," & concludes with "The darkest hour comes." Then there are the names of the book's sections -- 4 sections, an arrangement that contributed to the sneaking, satisfying balance -- 1) "Happy Hour," 2) "Jukebox," 3) "Dance Floor," & 4) "I Am Going to Have to Take Your Keys." LUCIFER AT THE STARLITE is a great night out, all the greater for the hangover it leaves burning in our reawakened nerves.
February 4, 2010
The work in Lucifer at the Starlite includes muted, almost philosophical longing, set in the context of everyday details, and the thrills and disappointments of family and romantic relationships. Poems depict gods and devils who make pasta and negotiate for CEO-like control of the world. They explore the realms of fairy tales and prayer as well as bars and fetish boutiques.
Some pieces employ clever conceits, but Addonizio pulls them off by remaining grounded in sincerity and devoted to the originality of her language. For example, in the poem “You,” she identifies someone as different situations and objects that characterize the speaker’s relationship to the person. Highlights of the poem, like the line “You were a town with one pay phone and someone else was using it,” exemplify Addonizio’s specialty at capturing ordinary, familiar details with crystallizing specificity. “You” is one of several list poems that indict unavailable lovers and describe the heart with surprising images, calling it “that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band.”
While the book’s structure, which centers around a bar scene, and range of imagery can be humorous and playful, Addonizio’s voice is deeply reflective and romantic, and her control over the poems’ lyrical tones never wavers.
Some pieces employ clever conceits, but Addonizio pulls them off by remaining grounded in sincerity and devoted to the originality of her language. For example, in the poem “You,” she identifies someone as different situations and objects that characterize the speaker’s relationship to the person. Highlights of the poem, like the line “You were a town with one pay phone and someone else was using it,” exemplify Addonizio’s specialty at capturing ordinary, familiar details with crystallizing specificity. “You” is one of several list poems that indict unavailable lovers and describe the heart with surprising images, calling it “that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band.”
While the book’s structure, which centers around a bar scene, and range of imagery can be humorous and playful, Addonizio’s voice is deeply reflective and romantic, and her control over the poems’ lyrical tones never wavers.
December 2, 2013
I encountered Kim Addonizio through a podcast, either The Writer's Almanac or Poem of the Day. Her poem "What Do Women Want?" (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/pr...) totally knocked my socks off. I had to read a collection of hers, and this one did not disappoint. Her poems are romantic and raw and sassy and sexy and angry and left me wanting more.
Favorites:
Sign Your Name
For You
You
The First Line is the Deepest
Forms of Love
Book Burning
News
Favorites:
Sign Your Name
For You
You
The First Line is the Deepest
Forms of Love
Book Burning
News
March 31, 2021
This is the book of poetry that made me love poetry. Gritty, provocative, and elegant with graceful allusions. Addonizio’s poems are like getting drunk at a party and have a deep conversation you can’t remember in the morning. All you know is that it made you feel something.
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