When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Mother - Softcover

Broder, Melissa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 098410254X ISBN 13: 9780984102549

Publisher: Ampersand Books, 2010

Synopsis

Poetry. Who's the queen of kundalini bloopers, Emily Dickinson's attitude problem (that bitch) and California dreams? It's Melissa Broder, who will charm your pants off and show you a little tough love in this vivid, witty first collection of poems. Each poem is artisan-crafted in controlled couplets, weighty triplets, tight syllabics and assonance that will take the top of your head off. But you won't have the time to absorb the academic monkeyshine—so absorbed you'll be on the flip side of Bat Mitzvah stress-syndrome, Aunt Sheila's in Taos, vampires in absentia, and brand names, brand names, brand names. From junkie fetishism to a housewife with a special "thing" for laundry, Broder does dark with magnetic charisma and enchanting humor.

About this title

About the Author:

Melissa Broder is also the author of MEAT HEART (Publishing Genius Press, 2012) and WHEN YOU SAY ONE THING BUT MEAN YOUR MOTHER (Ampersand Books, 2010), which Publishers Weekly calls "as funny and hip as it is disturbing." Poems appear or are forthcoming in Guernica, Redivider, The Missouri Review online, Drunken Boat, Court Green, Barrelhouse, Opium and more. She edits the online journal La Petite Zine and curates the Polestar Poetry Series. By day she is a publicity manager at Penguin. She lives in Brooklyn.

Review:

This debut from Broder...is as funny and hip as it is disturbing. Poems with titles like Where Is Your Vampire and Not Quite Ready for the NRA feature jumpy, accessible lines about love and lust in a drug- and media-fueled world...These poems are also quirkily compassionate...sexy, and at times even gross... Throughout, Broder searches for a place to stand, and for an object for her considerable sympathies. This is a bright and unusual debut. --Publisher's Weekly

Lusty, obsessive, and drug-fueled are words not usually used to describe a book of poems but in this case, they apply. Melissa Broder's work offers readers a rush, buzz, panoply of pop culture, as well as her own boisterous brand of dark humor. But be warned: behind the irrepressible excess, an extremely clear-headed and sharp-witted poet is taking notes. Her unique gift for being both grounded and giddy at once gives this writing its delightfully wicked edge. --Elaine Equi, Ripple Effect

Melissa Broder's poems are bad-ass ninja assassins smoking Camel straights and drinking Tab in blood-soaked satin tutus. Her new book is full of tightly-crafted, controlled explosions... "Did you vomit in my shower?" begins a poem, and continues to progress in discoveries. When you think she can't get any wilder, she climbs yet another rung...She speaks in many tongues, and all of them bite. --Jennifer L. Knox, Drunk By Noon

About this edition

• Publisher: Ampersand Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 098410254X
• ISBN 13: 9780984102549
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96