Chronic

The first poetry collection by D. A. Powell since his remarkable trilogy of Tea, Lunch, and

Cocktails, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award so many of the best days seem minor forms of nearness that easily falls among the dropseed: a rind, a left-behind                                                                —from “no picnic”

In these brilliant new poems from one of contemporary poetrys most intriguing, singular voices, D. A. Powell strikes out for the farther territories of love and comes back from those fields with loss, with flowers faded, “blossom blast and dieback.” Chronic describes the flutter and cruelty of erotic encounter, temptation, and bitter heartsickness, but with Powells deep lyric beauty and his own brand of dark wit. D. A. Powell is the author of Tea, Lunch, and Cocktails, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. He teaches at the University of San Francisco and lives in the Bay Area. A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

In these brilliant new poems from one of contemporary poetrys most intriguing, singular voices, D. A. Powell strikes out for the farther territories of love and comes back from those fields with loss, with flowers faded, "blossom blast and dieback." Chronic describes the flutter and cruelty of erotic encounter, temptation, and bitter heartsickness, but with Powells deep lyric beauty and his own brand of dark wit. "This fourth collection from Powell is simultaneously an accessible heartbreaker, a rare gem for connoisseurs, a genre-altering breakthrough and a long anticipated follow-up. The San Francisco-based poet has lived with, and written about, HIV for a decade, and his own illness remains a subject here; so does his celebration of gay eroticism, of love in the spirit and in the flesh. 'Democrac' (Powell pointedly omits the 'Y') shows 21st-century queer anguish and outrage: 'does god discriminate, slashing some flags,' it asks, while 'farther above the chapels pale heaven expires.' Powell goes on to investigate many more sources of sadness and happiness, solidarity and discontent: 'Cancer inside a little sea' takes on environmental degradation: 'child to come, what will you make of this scratched paradise.' The unruly long lines of Powell's previous work here join more conventional-looking stanzaic lyrics; they join, too, two ultra-long poems, printed sideways, entitled 'Cinemascope' and 'centerfold.' This book will be remembered for years, for its serious feelings, their swerves, their tears, its jokes. A poem to a crab louse abuts a scene from the biblical binding of Isaac, and a poem in which the Twin Towers fall segues from bedroom to public space and then back: 'lips can say anything but first they say goodbye.'"—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Praise for Cocktails:

“Powells long, stuttering line helps his extravagant imagination encompass the practical troubles long illness entails. No accessible poet of his generation is half as original, and no poet as original is this accessible.” —The New York Times Book Review

“D. A. Powell is one of the two or three major poets now in mid-career . . . We will still be reading D. A. Powell a long time from now, both for the record he offers of the last thirty years of American history and culture and for the new possibilities he has created for poetry. He is both accessible and challenging, saying something new, and saying it newly, with each book, yet speaking with an authority as old as poetry itself.” —Craig Morgan Teicher, 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist citation

"There are poets who show us the exterior world and poets who ferry news of their inner turmoil. Yet very few possess the double vision required to do both....Chronic, [Powell's] fourth book, is one of those rare collections that moves beautifully between poetry's inner/outer stereopticon." John Freeman, Los Angeles Times (read the entire Los Angeles Times review)

The first poetry collection by D. A. Powell since his remarkable trilogy of Tea, Lunch, and

Cocktails, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

so many of the best days seem minor forms of nearness:
that easily falls among the dropseed:
a rind,
a left-behind

- from "no picnic"

In these brilliant new poems from one of contemporary poetrys most intriguing, singular voices, D. A. Powell strikes out for the farther territories of love and comes back from those fields with loss, with flowers faded, “blossom blast and dieback.” Chronic describes the flutter and cruelty of erotic encounter, temptation, and bitter heartsickness, but with Powells deep lyric beauty and his own brand of dark wit.

Now in paperback, the winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award so many of the best days seem minor forms of nearness

      that easily fall among the dropseed: a rind, a left-behind

                      —from “no picnic”

In these brilliant poems from one of contemporary poetrys most intriguing, singular voices, D. A. Powell strikes out for the farther territories of love and comes back from those fields with loss, with flowers faded, “blossom blast and dieback.” Chronic describes the flutter and cruelty of erotic encounter, temptation, and bitter heartsickness, but with Powells deep lyric beauty and his own brand of dark wit.

D. A. POWELL is the author of Tea, Lunch, and Cocktails, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. He teaches at the University of San Francisco and lives in the Bay Area.