The Hat City After Men Stopped Wearing Hats [Paperback]

John Surowiecki (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2007

2006 Washington Prize Winner.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...Surowiecki, in language as compressed and as crucial as that penciled on any pivotal postcard, offers lyrics that convey dashed hopes and routine absurdities with elegance and wit." --Michael Waters, author of Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems

"In John Surowiecki's magnificent poems anything can happen. Small children imagine Chinese communists invading tulips; fish wear fedoras and suffer mercury shakes; he-men glisten like glazed doughnuts." --Joan Joffe Hall, author of In Angled Light

About the Author

John Surowiecki is the author of Watching Cartoons Before Attending a Funeral (White Pine Press, 2003) along with five chapbooks. He won the Pablo Neruda Prize sponsored by Nimrod International Journal in 2006, and in 2005 he was awarded a poetry fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, Office of the Arts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: The Word Works; 1st edition (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915380641
• ISBN-13: 978-0915380640
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,180,160 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Surowiecki is ridiculously underrated!, April 14, 2009

By 

Shelley Puhak - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hat City After Men Stopped Wearing Hats (Paperback)

A master of craft, of understatement, of the startling comparison or perfect telling detail, he can condense an entire life into a handful of lines. And he manages to be funny even when writing about the things that might break us. For examples, be sure to check out "Connecticut Invaded By Chinese Communists (1951)," "The Sadness Associated with Crab Lice," and "Mr. Krok with a Wasp in his Ear."

Poems seek out some small redemption in even the most senseless loss. Consider "The Italian Woman Upstairs," whose subject won't make ravioli because her son died as an infant:

because they [ravioli] have chubby faces
with expressions you can never quite discern
and, straining for air, they get torn open
and fill the world with snow.

Highly recommended!

P.S. The Poetry Foundation just interviewed Surowiecki about his title poem, "The Hat City after Men Stopped Wearing Hats," and its (coincidental?) parallels to the Obama inauguration. You can listen at:
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