Fresh Failure: New Poems

The eagerly anticipated new volume of poetry by acclaimed author and artist John Tottenham.

Tottenham's previous collections—The Hate Poems; Antiepithalamia & Other Poems of Regret and Resentment; The Inertia Variations (a multi-media interpretation of which was released by Matt Johnson, otherwise known as The The, in 2017)—established him as this day’s leading contemporary poet maudit.

Fresh Failure features a deepening and broadening of Tottenham’s trademark Magical Cynicism and Magnanimous Misanthropy. With hilariously ruthless ruminations on the artistic ego and the romantic id, Tottenham gives voice to the kind of thoughts most people prefer not to express but will automatically relate to and be entertained by.  It's the kind of poetry that is accessible to people who don't read poetry (i.e., everybody). Fresh Failure is ultimately a Triumph of Failure, and proves, as Jean-Luc Godard said, that poetry really is “a game of loser take all.”

After many years of resistance, John Tottenham finally sold out to the lucrative, fast-paced world of poetry. He is the author of The Inertia Variations, an epic cycle on the subject of work-avoidance, indolence, and failure. Antiepithalamia & Other Poems of Regret and Resentment, a sequence of mean-spirited love poems with respect paid to the institution of marriage, was published by Penny-Ante Press in October 2012.

A sonic and cinematic interpretation of The Inertia Variations by The The (Matt Johnson) was released in late 2017.

Tottenham is also an old-fashioned paint and brushes man, whose paintings and drawings have been exhibited at galleries in Los Angeles and New York. In June 2014 he had a solo show at Maloney Fine Art. A selection of his drawings appeared at Regen Projects, Los Angeles in late 2017. A new show of drawings, "Emptyscapes," opened at the Lora Schlesinger Gallery in Santa Monica in November, 2018.

Tottenham’s last collection of poetry, The Hate Poems, representing the dregs of his output between the years 2012 and 2015, was published by Amok Press in late 2018. His essays and criticism often appear in Artillery, the LA Review of Books, and other periodicals. He lives in California.