Deepfake Serenade

Book excerpt: In Deepfake Serenade, Chris Banks’s sixth poetry collection, irreverent charm, emotional distance and surprising hot takes leap off every page. He writes in the title poem, “Inside every one of us is a deepfake. A holy ghost,” suggesting people have a choice to feel either like sad imposters or, if they're brave, like survivors staring down a world both utterly familiar and strange. These poems, sometimes narrative, sometimes surreal, oscillate between these two extremes as they confront middle age, new love, renewed optimism and memories, all with Banks’s signature wit and inventiveness. This collection is for anyone who has ever wished to wear “a halo of knowing,” or to be “the sparks flying” when outer phenomena and inner impulses collide. “Earn your rewards,” Banks writes in one poem, and we do, with every turn of the page.