Dear, Sincerely (Pitt Poetry Series)

Dear, Sincerely (Pitt Poetry Series)

by David Hernandez (Author)

Synopsis

Dear Proofreader

You're right. I meant midst, not mist.
I don't know what I was stinking,
I mean thinking, soap speaks intimately
to my skin every day. Most days.
Depending if darkness has risen
to my skull like smoke up a chimney floe.
Flue. Then no stepping nude
into the shower, no mist turning
the bathroom mirror into frosted glass
where my face would float
coldly in the oval. Picture a caveman
encased in ice. Good. I like how
your mind works, how your eyes
inside your mind works, and your actual eyes
reading this, their icy precision, nothing
slips by them. Even now I can feel you
hovering silently above these lines,
hawkish, Godlike, each period
a lone figure kneeling in the snow.
That's too solemn. I would like to send
search parties and rescue choppers
to every period ever printed.
I would like to apologize to my wife
for not showering on Monday and Tuesday.
I was stinking. I was simultaneously
numb and needled with anxiety,
in the midst of a depressive episode.
Although mist would work too,
metaphorically speaking, in the mist of,
in the fog of, this gray haze that followed me
relentlessly from room to room
until every red bell inside my head
was wrong. Rung.

$18.98

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 64
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 28 Feb 2016

ISBN 10: 0822964074
ISBN 13: 9780822964070

Media Reviews
By turns humorous, whimsical, and provocative, Hernandez arranges this book around epistolary salutations and valedictions, with titles like Dear Professor and Dear Proofreader. . . . The best of these resemble Neruda's odes, in which everyday objects absorb human emotions to become perfectly personified. . . A curious, kaleidoscopic work of poetic intelligence.
--Booklist
Dear everyone, you should read David Hernandez's new book, because 'Dear, Sincerely' is a generous and inventive invitation to laughter. All of the poems in this collection possess the same qualities that great letters possess: they are entertaining and still honest, immediate, and intimate.
--Rain Taxi
A monster book of poems. Hernandez is a monster poet. These love letters are giant poems cutting a big path right into your central nervous system, once there they'll reset the jog. Hernandez doesn't care about you, he will happily make you laugh or cry on whim with his wicked wit. A solid stream of great ideas rendered poetic.
--Today's Book of Poetry

Hernandez writes in the voice of a mayfly at the end of his 24 hours on Earth. Doorknobs, mylar balloons, and team mascots get similarly imaginative attention in this spectacular collection.
--Santa Barbara Independent

Author Bio
David Hernandez's most recent book of poetry, Hoodwinked, won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry. His other books include Always Danger and A House Waiting for Music. He is also the author of two YA novels, No More Us for You and Suckerpunch. David teaches creative writing at California State University, Long Beach.