Abstract

In her latest collection of poems, The Book of Accident, Beckian Fritz Goldberg invites the reader into a shadowy atmosphere where her language prowls among strange images— hummingbirds become a “fistful of violet amphetamines” and desire gnaws away like a “live rat sewed up inside us.” Reading The Book of Accident is like entering a graphic novel with missing panels, a noir world of queasy glints and feral adolescents, “a world where no one has to love you.” Characters go by odd names—Torture Boy, Skin Girl, Lala Petite, Wolf Boy (his body “pale as the plucked end of light”)—punk kids fending for themselves in an expressionistic version of those old stories “that began, Let’s take the children out to the woods / and leave them.” And on every page, there’s Goldberg’s hard- edged wit, with the speed and flash of a video game. These poems show mercy but give no ground. They make you feel heartbroken and frightened and exhilarated at the same time. Beckian Fritz Goldberg is one of the most extraordinary poets of her generation, and her work continues to define the cutting edge of recent American poetry. —David St. John The poems of Beckian Fritz Goldberg possess a steely ferocity, and they are as urgent as they are inventive. The Book of Accident, with its sorrowful mysteries and intimations of apocalypse, is her finest collection yet, a searing, haunted book that can rightfully be called prophetic. —David Wojahn Beckian Fritz Goldberg's The Book of Accident recounts a post-apocalyptic cosmos that transforms every moment into wilderness. These poems do not hold violence at arm's length but accept it as a natural consequence. Even at its most searing, this is a tremendous collection from a poet who has the craft and vision to challenge our world of hurt with difficult mercies. —William Olsen

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