Tell Me (American Poets Continuum) [Paperback]

Kim Addonizio (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1880238918 | ISBN-13: 978-1880238912 | Publication Date: July 1, 2000

Poems of loneliness and late nights, liquor and loss.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It is not surprising that each of Laux's and Addonizio's third collections of poems are being published in close proximity by the same house. In 1997 the pair coauthored The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (Norton); both have published two previous collections with BOA; both use candid and unsentimental personal history as a prime subject matter; and both have stronger work in earlier collections. Many of Addonizio's (Jimmy & Rita) straight-talk poems in Tell Me, dedicated to Laux, depict honest characters who are in the destructive, but often unrevealing, clutches of hard-drinking, doomed relationships, and all manner of problems that subsequently arise. Some of the poems raise the question of what happens when you risk emotional honesty and it doesn't work: in "The Divorcee and Gin," she writes, "God, I love/ what you do to me at night when we're alone,/ how you wait for me to take you into me/ until I'm so confused with you I can't/ stand up anymore." The situations are often compelling, and the performancelike language lends them an air of melodrama that many be intentional, but they don't really rise above the status of well-lineated memoir. The largely domestic and narrative poems of Laux's Smoke shift between internal and external landscapes in a manner that at moments recalls early Richard Hugo: "Somewhere/ a Dumpster is ratcheted open by the claws/ of a black machine. All down the block/ something inside you opens and shuts." Her strongest work here achieves a solid music by using direct address in poems such as "Books" and "The Shipfitter's Wife." Yet the plainspoken approach, aiming at understatement, often specifies too little, letting emotional nuance go unarticulated. While both poets may work in parallel registers, the effect of each is distinct. Unfortunately, many poems in both books do not quite locate the seemingly powerful places that generate the work. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Told in the cracked, smoky voice of someone who has loved and lost a lot and has come out the stronger for it these poems by the author of The Philosopher's Club and Jimmy & Rita crackle with energy yet do not betray the slightest slackening of craft. Addonizio moves from bars to caf?s to one-night stands and back to bars singing a sophisticated version of the blues. She may wonder "who has the time for anything/ but their own pleasures and sorrows," but her work never succumbs to melancholy.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 90 pages
• Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd. (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880238918
• ISBN-13: 978-1880238912
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kim Addonizio is a fiction writer, poet, and teacher. Her poetry collections include Tell Me, a finalist for the National Book Award, What Is This Thing Called Love, and Lucifer at the Starlite. She lives in Oakland, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Form and Narrative Hit the Streets, September 1, 2000

By 

Robert McDowell "Robert McDowell" (Ashland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tell Me (American Poets Continuum) (Hardcover)

This book is a marvelous tonic for those who denigrate the contemporary use of traditional form and storytelling in poems. Old fashioned? Out of date? Read this book and Wake Up! Smart, sassy, funny, sexy, tender and bold, these poems give us the news of a wild, humane world that I, for one, am delighted to wake up living in. In a world of so many poet-phonies, Addonizio is grounded. Her poems are the real deal.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars kim's latest collection is as awesome as her first, June 16, 2001

By 

[e-mail] "[e-mail]" (Beaumont, tx USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Tell Me (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

Tell Me is as wonderful as Philosopher's Club. The poems have a raw, sensuous power to them. They feel confessional without being confessionalist poetry. This is just an awesome collection from a wonderful poet. I'm turning into such a fan of hers that i may have to become president of the fan club.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Straightforward, solid poems, April 4, 2001

By 

Dale Tegtman "delta magnet" (San Francisco, California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tell Me (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

Addonizio uses a conversational linguistic strategy. Her work is exceedingly accessible and clear. She uses a personal authority to make broad statements about contemporary life, but is not confessional.

One senses that her best work is yet to come, but that Tell Me will be a popular collection. I enjoyed this volume and (full disclosure) have worked briefly with the author.