This poetry collection offers a contemporary, ironic, and dazzling view of America.

Ah, writ happens. Like the con men who rely on thieves' Latin to ply their trade, the poems in Peter Jay Shippy's award-winning collection don't play well with other poems. They are difficult. They rave. They are unsettling and blunt. They crash cars and ride tsunamis and hitch rides on tugs. They also provide a contemporary, ironic, and tender view of America, all the while layering wordplay, cleverness, and sentiment. Shippy's narrators dance like night writing; they witness the reverse / side of actions and take a walk on the wing; they feel nothing but articulation and attach our planet to the highest branch; they have a good feeling about most birds, and trust / that they are a friend to man. In other words, their condition is Beckettian, but they speak like one of Sam Shepherd's dusty road angels.