Sophomore Slump

"Leigh Chadwick's prose poems are shockingly blunt and compulsively tender. They are dangerous confessions shot out of the cannon of her restless imagination and aimed straight at your heart. Don't blink." -Steve Almond, author of " is a kaleidoscopic, versatile, and transgressive work of art. These poems-no, these glimpses into the heart-are full of irreverence and the practicality life needs to sustain itself. Unassumingly brilliant and funny, is an indelible work from an unforgettable writer." -Morgan Talty, author of "Hanging out with Leigh Chadwick's poetry collection is like bumping into a friend you haven't seen in a decade, and picking up exactly where you left off. Maybe you and this friend have both listened to 'Debaser' by the Pixies for six weeks straight. Perhaps your 'dreams are nothing but a wall of owls, ' or you have stumbled upon 'a sundress lumped in dust and asphalt, alone in the middle of Grand River Avenue.' Just when you think Chadwick's poems have reached the peak in their crescendo, they keep climbing. Chadwick grabs the most dazzling grotesque tableaus of the subconscious, then recasts them in the spirit of a music video worthy of a premium spot on ." -Mary Biddinger, author of "Leigh Chadwick's is a seriously hilarious romp, via prose poems. Chadwick uses the literary device of a lead singer in a band, complete with hits, demos and bonus tracks to wrap her mind around the folly of celebrity at a time of Earth's violence and peril, i.e. She is not afraid to meet our cultural moment head on with all the urgency it requires. Chadwick is constantly assessing, sometimes farcically so-in 'Yelp Reviews of Past Loves'-and sometimes chillingly so in 'A Comprehensive List of Places to Hide from a Bullet.' I couldn't help think of Harold Bloom's -though Chadwick kicks Bloom and Freud to the curb. Her anxiety is not struggling to top her literary idols but instead hopes to top herself (which, of course, she does!)." -Denise Duhamel, author of