Come close then back away -- The properties of women are the properties of life -- Do not be broken by the day -- The whole ugly empire -- Be not inhospitable to strangers -- Fun house -- The one you have to love -- Shark Week -- Their joy is right in front of them -- Bringing in the noir -- How we love geography -- Ranger buster jangle -- St. Deceiver in the garden -- We seek a shepherd or a sign -- Losing the plot -- These bones will rise again -- Country on fire -- Memoir so far -- Blunder -- This year has my name on it -- Kaiser variations 1 -- Kaiser variations 2 -- Kaiser variations 3 -- Kaiser variations 4 -- Kaiser variations 5 -- Kaiser variations 6 -- Kaiser variations 7 -- Kaiser variations 8 -- Kaiser variations 9 -- Kaiser variations 10 -- House of sleep -- Your problem is forest fires -- Wave if you see me -- I have a secret admirer -- The sun is still a part of me -- It is not entirely my fault -- Wisconsin space odyssey -- Fun house 2 -- I am a person of hidden talents -- We work the dark like the moon -- A hundred efforts have been made -- On track at Appomattox -- Compos mentis -- I am free to destroy myself -- In the absence lives the feeling -- The universe is contracting and expanding.
Summary:
"Incantatory, intimate, and incendiary, the poems of this award-winning debut are filled with explosive wit and humor like "a knife you dońt see coming." A kaleidoscopic intelligence flows through Beautiful Zero, embracing forms of culture high and low in effort to finding meaning in the chaos. Poems about Shark Week and college football sit beside Roman Polanski and biting critiques of modern war. A series of poems set in a Kaiser Permanente hospital tear into the world of privatized health care while simultaneously charting a story of love in the face of catastrophe. Yet even at her most surreal, Willoughby always finds the pulsing heart at the core of the poem. She embraces what she cannot understand about both the world and herself because after all, "Nothing is as random as they say it is. / You were born the weirdo that you are"--Publisher's website.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.