★ 03/19/2018
"[Pico] weaves pop culture and slang throughout his deep-rooted criticisms of US history and culture, wooing readers into a comfortable, if brief, moment of familiarity (see: Janet Jackson lyrics) so that the swift pivot to violence and heartache hits like a gut punch."
"[Tommy Pico] writes poems that are complex yet accessible, that sound like 2018 but that have staying power long past it, in the same way that O’Hara’s poems resonate long past their midcentury milieu. . . . Through Pico’s lens, nothing is not worth our attention."
Los Angeles Review of Books
"Tommy Pico's new collection, Junk , is nimble as jazz, intentionally unstable, a queer Beat novel in verse for the social media age."
"Tommy Pico's books are contemporary epics. He writes poetry of rare brilliance, assured in form and forceful in its interrogation of myth and cultural expectations and self."
"Imagine Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' littered with Morgan Parker's pop cultural panache, and you'll get Junk , Tommy Pico's brazen third book, a long-form breakup poem at once hilarious and harrowing."
the Oprah Magazine (Editor's Pick) O
"Tommy Pico’s complex and lush third collection, Junk , explodes, rewinds, meditates, and explodes again. It binges and purges—on class, identity, sex, politics, snacks, comfort, and fear. . . . Pico is a master of inclusion, of elevating the mundane to the sublime, of examining absurdity and grave seriousness with equal measure. This is an ambitious long poem, and Pico is uniquely qualified to both drag and celebrate modern day consumption and indulgence with graceful humor and grit."
"Junk is a true American odyssey, complete with a reluctant hero who defies all odds to survive. Repulsed by the trashiness of empire, the violence of occupation, this book nonetheless searches in earnest for real tenderness, a romance that isn’t corny. . . . This is poetry of the highest order, on the level of a pop song, with the crystalline visions of a seer. I consumed it greedily, repeatedly, and am forever changed because of it."
"Whiting Award-winner Tommy Pico follows his cult favorites Nature Poem and IRL with a gloriously wide-ranging monologue on love and friendship, queer and indigenous identity, Janet Jackson and nacho cheese. Pico builds his own 21st-century poetics, junk and all—and as he writes, 'It's important / to value the Junk, Junk has the best stories.'"
"You could—and should—read all of Junk in one feverish sitting, and you'll feel like it's been injected right into your gut, where all good and weird things and feelings live and breed. . . . I just want you to read it. So go do that. You'll thank me later."
"The genius of Junk lies in the poet's outward vision, in his ability, heeding 'the gusting forward of time,' to create new space for himself and others like him, to create a new sense of identity. . . . Heady, heartfelt and unforgettable, Junk stands out as the work of an original and vital voice."
"Pico’s poetry is like a syntactic tidal wave. His books are experiences, and Junk is a trip."
"A mash-up of humor, cutting-edge language, and shattered stereotypes, Pico's work paints a whole new portrait of queer identity . . . Truly incredible."
"This is the thing about reading Tommy Pico’s Junk : it’s a book that simultaneously propels you forward with its limitless energy and beckons you to linger and parse out the multiple levels of text contained within."
"Pico is the master of making the stone stony, of returning the sheer absurdity of being to everything, from grief to intimacy to dating apps to donuts. Junk insists on the urgency of the quotidian, of, to borrow a phrase from Pico, 'vibrant inconsequence.' It’s rare to read a book that makes living feel so alive."
★ 02/15/2018
