A new volume by acclaimed poet Kim Addonizio, whose work is known for its streetwise, unflinching explorations of love, lust, and mortality. Set in locations from dive bars to Montparnasse Cemetery, from an ancient Greek temple to a tourist shop in Assisi, Exit Opera explores the ever-vexing issues of time, mortality, love, and loss, and considers the roles of art and human connection. Whatever their nominal subject—jazz, zombies, Buddhism, Siberian tigers—these poems make for a compelling mix of humor and pain, difficulty and solace. In a nod to Keats, one of the many fellow travelers in these poems, Addonizio invites us to “[inscribe] a few verses on whatever water / you can find” and assures readers that they are not alone in navigating the challenges and changes of mortal life. As she writes in “My Opera”: The staging is difficult. Exploding starsare involved, high-redshift galaxies, interior chambers,a little country blues, a little jazz guitar, a jam jar containinga tiny ocean & a tinier rowboat rocking gently in the swellsthat I am steering toward you in the dark.
Author
Author of several poetry collections including Tell Me, a National Book Award Finalist. My Black Angel is a book of blues poems with woodcuts by Charles D. Jones, from SFA Press. The Palace of Illusions is a story collection from Counterpoint/Soft Skull. A New & Selected, Wild Nights, is out in the UK from Bloodaxe Books. 2016 publications: Mortal Trash, new poems, from W.W. Norton, awarded the Paterson Poetry Prize. A memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life, from Penguin. Two instructional books on writing poetry: The Poet's Companion (with Dorianne Laux), and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within. First novel, Little Beauties, was published by Simon & Schuster and chosen as "Best Book of the Month" by Book of the Month Club. My Dreams Out in the Street, second novel, released by Simon & Schuster in 2007. A new word/music CD, "My Black Angel, "is a collaboration with several musicians and contains all the poems in the book of that name. That and an earlier word/music CD with poet Susan Browne, "Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing," available from cdbaby.com. There's an earlier book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure (FC2); and the anthology Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos,, co-edited with Cheryl Dumesnil. I teach poetry workshops at conferences and online through my web site. I also play blues harmonica, and I'm learning jazz flute. Music is a good place to focus when I'm in a writing slump.
