Useful Junk (American Poets Continuum Series, 191)

A master ofdocumentary poetry, Erika Meitner takes up the question of desire and intimacyin her latest collection of poems. Inher previous five collections of poetry, Erika Meitner has established herselfas one of America's most incisive observers, cherished for her remarkableability to temper catastrophe with tenderness. In her newest collection Useful Junk, Meitnerconsiders what it means to be a sexual being in a world that sees women asinvisible--as mothers, customers, passengers, worshippers, wives. These poems renderour changing bodies as real and alive, shaped by the sense memories oflong-lost lovers and the still thrilling touch of a spouse after years ofparenthood, affirming that we are made of every intimate moment we have everhad. Letter poems to a younger poet interspersed throughout the collection questiondesire itself and how new technologies--Uber, sexting, Instagram--are reframingself-image and shifting the ratios of risk and reward in eroticencounters. Withdauntless vulnerability, Meitner travels a world of strip malls, supermarkets,and subway platforms, remaining porous and open to the world, always returningto the intimacies rooted deep within the self as a shout against the dyingearth. Boldly affirming that pleasure is a vital form of knowledge, Useful Junk remindsus that our selves are made real and beautiful by our embodied experiences andthat our desire is what keeps us alive.

• | Author: Erika Meitner
• | Publisher: Boa Editions Ltd.
• | Publication Date: Apr 05, 2022
• | Number of Pages: 104 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1950774538
• | ISBN-13: 9781950774531