A New Kind of Country

Overview

Kyle Schlesinger’s poems and prose texts speak in a voice that gets beneath the skin of these times, pointing us in and beyond ourselves. “The words are in the body / The body is in the mind” he tells us. And “What’s on television” he asks, then admits “Just another hallucination.” Green light and pink lighting permeate this work. “You wouldn’t believe it / If I told you / That I was where / You thought you were / When we heard the news.” We need these words of Kyle’s to help us shoulder that news—fake and otherwise—aimed at us each day. The twoline poem, “Split,” is worth quoting in full: “We were / Now we’re.” And poems such as “It’s a Freak Out” deliver a sophisticated humor. A wholly original book. — Margaret Randall

Author Biography

Kyle Schlesinger was born in Providence in 1976. He studied poetry and pedagogy at Goddard College, and went on to study poetics with Robert Creeley at the University at Buffalo, where he earned his doctorate in 2005. The author of over twenty books of poetry and criticism, Schlesinger currently lives in Austin, where he runs Cuneiform Press and directs the Graduate Program in Publishing at UHV.