3.5 for originality and intelligence. If Walt Whitman lived in a global, urban, industrial time, this is what he would write. There is all the interconnectedness of humanity and nature, (though less pristine and optimistic here than Leaves of Grass) of common good, of the impact we have on each other and the earth. Borzutzky definitely has the pulse of our modern era and pop culture and the amazing capacity to zoom out and in to universal trends and truths to the tiny details that impact the individual. He doesn't shy away from what humans have wrought upon the earth and each other and it's very visceral at times, which kept me from loving it. I respect it, though. Mostly in prose poem form, the pieces provoke thought and reflection. Sample from Dream Song #423: "In the last verse we all sang a song about the Statue of Liberty, the fastest woman in all of Mexico/I love her, sing the generals and CEOs/I love her, sing the Bolivians and Peruvians/ I love her sing the beggars and bankers/I love her rusted body sing the pornographers and the doctors/I love her reverie, her darkness, her malleability, sing the professors/I love her, sings the poet because she reminds me of my mother and my mother reminds me of myself and I remind myself of my father and all the mouths he needs to feed." National Book Award winner 2016 and Chicago guy. ( )

sick poems for today. ( )

A wonderful collection of poems that rage against the world as it is today. Every person that reads this might come to a totally different interpretation but that is the joy of it. To me the book is an indictment of conformity in which people are like slabs of meat. The government also is given the full force of Borzutsky's guns which burn brightly. Another theme is displaced people who are forced. to struggle with situations outside their control. A well deserved award winning collection. ( )