The Poet Confronts Bukowski's Ghost

Book excerpt: On the night that I open my first MFA rejection letter, Charles Bukowski appears in the corner of my college apartment in stained khakis and a yellowed white undershirt, swirling Jim Beam in a lowball glass... The Poet Confronts Bukowski's Ghost is Kat Giordano's debut full-length poetry collection. "This book is full of cutting truths and visceral honesty, softened by the same hand that sharpened it. It's rare to find a poet who is able to so effortlessly infuse comedy and humor into serious, heart-breaking poetry, but you find that in The Poet Confronts Bukowski's Ghost. Kat's vulnerability and openness feels almost effortless, and will make everyone who reads this collection want to be braver." -- Caitlyn Siehl, author of Crybaby "Kat Giordano's work reads like the human body after a crime of passion. And you look up and realize what you have done and the poems are over and you are sitting in a pool of blood. Or is it your own tears? You will feel a wetness and a hurt, like you did not want it to be over and then it was." -- Heather Bell, author of A Horse Made of Fire "Kat Giordano is a fearless poet of and for our troubled times. The voices in her poems struggle a lot. There's anxiety and self-doubt. There's Poet Man and MeToo and the lie of Bob Ross's fluffy evergreens - fake beauty that can lull a person into believing the world is prettier and more promising than it is. These are poems filled with speakers who know the fight for their artistic and literal survival -- however impossible it seems -- is their only option. . . What a fresh and edged voice this is. A fierce debut." -- Lori Jakiela, author of Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe