Junk City

Anderson’s first full-length collection introduces a remarkable poet. “Tonight in a single bed/ I count all the men I’ve ever loved/ on one hand, the other is reserved for myself . . . ” she says, and nothing better describes the sense of victim and victor so present in these poems. The opening poema child’s-eye view of divorcegives the firm impression that one will always lose at love, but the writer refuses to renounce her “voodoo Cinderella” belief in her prince. Fear and knowledge juxtaposed, she moves from the old boyfriend who “looked so much like Montgomery Clift” to people “talking back to the movie/ in this theatre of skipped seats,/ the stained velvet upholstery,/ where 75? gets you two features/ and a luminous darkness.” Essential for all serious poetry collections. Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, “Soho Weekly News,” New York

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Selected by

Robert Pinsky

publisher

pages

54