God Must Be a Boogie Man

Klepsch's poems are wild, experiential, but stick with the themes that wriggle and writhe through all the chambers of the human heart -- loss, God, fear, death -- on their way to slamming against the good, the bad and the stupid of technology and modernity in forms that will keep you delighted for the whole ride."Gratitude, gut gratitude. Poet Nancy Klepsch knows it because grief "still scrapes the/ soft palate [her] mouth / sews raw skin onto [her] teeth." From injury arises a poetic...
More Description

Klepsch's poems are wild, experiential, but stick with the themes that wriggle and writhe through all the chambers of the human heart -- loss, God, fear, death -- on their way to slamming against the good, the bad and the stupid of technology and modernity in forms that will keep you delighted for the whole ride."Gratitude, gut gratitude. Poet Nancy Klepsch knows it because grief "still scrapes the/ soft palate [her] mouth / sews raw skin onto [her] teeth." From injury arises a poetic voice full of zing and verve. Klepsch's rants are a rush of full generosity: "I am stir-frying joy / How much pleasure can a mouth/ bring to someone ordinary as a dinner." Her humor pokes fun at personal pronouns and big data: "I am still incomplete a recovery agent's small scale discovery that this machine my poor body is a prototype a meme more beautiful and alive than I ever was." But her gut is just. Her blues damn racial violence; her musicality offers an equality: "all of us can stretch arc / kowtow to the catechism / of this river-scape / bob in its tidal / name waves / call the clouds cousin / round light snatch sunset." In a Collar City within the Rust Belt of this Queer Nation, Klepsch creates "bright glimpses" of how "We fight for everyone." Experimental page-poets and spoken word bards will agree: god must be a boogie man is an invigorating read that demands a stage." -- Lori Anderson Moseman"Read these poems when you're hungry, starving, famished - Nancy Klepsch's kitchen is always warm and noisy, always full of fresh basil, pita, sweet potatoes, and spices. Read these poems when you think all might be lost, or you might be going crazy - these poems are full of tender rage and wild sanity. Shaman, musician, passionate warrior, "a brave hard mount/in a hard brave world," the voice in this collection of poems will not be contained, speaks in chants and charts and recipes, documents the history of her city and our times, and the depth and urgency of these revelations, their s