We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
Grace Zabriskie, Poems, New York Quarterly Books, $16.95 (paper)
Every so often an actor or musician decides to publish a book of poetry— Alicia Keys, Charlie Sheen; singer-songwriter Jewel sold a million copies of her effort, A Night Without Armor. But unlike the other vanity collections, longtime character actress Grace Zabriskie’s Poems is an authentic and spirited book, rooted in her New Orleans upbringing and in the same Los Angeles that brought us Charles Bukowski. Fans of the actress won’t be surprised that many of her poems tackle gritty subject matter, and she has a knack for building, without exploiting, a harrowing scene. She also has a sharp sense of humor. “Joan,” Zabriskie writes in “Queen of the Waste Stream,” “the ways I have felt about garbage / up until now, are, in chronological order: // 1. No way at all, really. Nothing.” At about 140 pages and covering the entirety of her 30-year writing career, Poems most definitely would have benefited from more judicious editing (perhaps we don’t need the entirety of Zabriskie’s writing career), but the poems that succeed do so on their own strange merits and not simply because they glitter with Hollywood fairy dust. “What they want is the top of you. Skin. / The look and the / way and the lay of the land of you, in / little / boxes,” Zabriskie writes, tackling from an insider’s perspective what it feels like to do what she does for a living.
Lynn Melnick’s poems have appeared in Paris Review, jubilat, Guernica, and LIT.
Contributions from readers enable us to provide a public space, free and open, for the discussion of ideas. Join this effort – become a supporting reader today.
Vital reading on politics, literature, and more in your inbox. Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter, Monthly Roundup, and event notifications.
“Never do unto me what your uncle has done to us.” A family member’s disappearance leads to personal revelations.
Critics say human rights discourse blunts social transformation. It doesn’t have to.
“My mother has not slept for seven days.” A Taiwanese woman’s brother avoids calling their mother, setting off an insomniac unraveling.
A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975. Registered 501(c)(3) organization. Learn more about our mission