They Don't Kill You Because They're Hungry, They Kill You Because They're Full

by Mark Bibbins

Overview

Honored as a "Best Poetry Book of the Year" by Publishers Weekly

"The book's a little crazy, packed with air quotes and brackets, jokes and condemnations, forms that explode across the page. Crazily enough, it's also packed with truth.”—NPR

“The voice of this third book from Bibbins is marked and numbed by the onslaught of American media and politics that saturate the Internet, television, radio, and smartphone: ‘the way things are going, children/ will have to upgrade to more amusing.’ Much like advertisements or news stories vying for viewer’s attention, the book intentionally overwhelms, eschewing sections; the author instead differentiates the poems by repetition, creating a sort of echo chamber, similar to the way viral information cycles through social media platforms.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"[A] hilarious send-up of contemporary values and an alarm bell of sorts, directing attention to all that is so sinister in our civilization.”—American Poets

"Whip-smart and wickedly funny, They Don't Kill You is Bibbins's most authoritative and self-possessed collection to date."—Boston Review

The poems in Mark Bibbins's breakthrough third book are formally innovative and socially alert. Roving across the weird human landscape of modern politics, media-exacerbated absurdity, and questionable social conventions, this collection counters dread with wit, chaos with clarity, and reminds us that suffering is "small//compared to what?"

Mark Bibbins teaches in the graduate writing programs at The New School and Columbia University, and edits the poetry section of The Awl. He lives in New York City.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556594588
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	03/25/2014
Series:	Lannan Literary Selections
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Mark Bibbins is the author of The Dance of No Hard Feelings; The Anxiety of Coincidence, a digital-only chapbook; and Sky Lounge, which received a Lambda Literary Award. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at The New School, where he co-founded LIT magazine, and at Columbia University. Bibbins is the editor of the poetry section of The Awl and the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in poetry. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, Boston Review, Tin House, The Best American Poetry, and Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century.

Table of Contents

Breakout Session 3

You'll Get Better Attention When You Die 5

I Can Explain 6

Unity, Utility, Ubiquity 7

Evacuate the Premise 9

Pedagogy and Performance 10

In the Corner of a Room Where You Would Never Look 12

Terminal 14

Factory 16

Confidence 18

In Which the Pathetic Fallacy Wants to Even More 19

Desire Loves Disaster 21

Spring, or, I Don't Know Everything Is Wrong with Me 23

Honky 24

Worst Things First 26

Speedy 27

Summer's Other 28

Thunderbride 29

Medusa 32

Dear Rotten Garden- 40

The Editors 41

What Are Predators but Parasites That Kill You Faster 43

Burning Candygram 45

Almost as Good as What We Destroyed 46

The Bell Is a Recording 48

Strategy 51

Pat Robertson Transubstantiation Engine No. 1 52

Pat Robertson Transubstantiation Engine No. 2 53

Pat Robertson Transubstantiation Engine No. 3 54

Pat Robertson Transubstantiation Engine No. 4 55

Pat Robertson Transubstantiation Engine No. 5 56

Pat Robertson Transubstantiation Engine No. 6 57

Historical Action Figures 58

The Perspective Fairy 59

Bowerbird 61

The Year Is Always Two Years Ago 63

Junior National Treasure Cemetery 65

Grief! 66

Better Than Okay, with Androgyny 67

Being Our Pictures 68

A Place I Plan to Admire as Much as One I Can't See 69

The Anxiety of Coincidence 71

My Brightness Burton 72

Look Who Came Dressed as the Sun 74

Poem That Wants to Know If We Need Anything from the Store 75

Poem That Wants to Know When You're Taking out the Trash 76

Poem That Wants to Serve You Comfort and Despair 77

Poem That Wants to Be Something Rather Worse 78

Poem That Wants to Use Revelation 3:16 as an Epigraph 80

Poem That Wants to Be Less Amazed by a Man in a T-Shirt That Says 82

Similes Liberation Army 83

The Beginning of How We Started Dying 84

Further Strategies for Trapping the Dead 85

Witness 87

By the Number 3 93

Our Fairy Decorator 95

Storylines 97

Clouds Mistaken for Nearby Clouds 99

Two More 100

This Land Is Mylar 101

A Small Gesture of Gratitude 102

About the Author 106

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/03/2014
The voice of this third book from Bibbins (The Dance of No Hard Feelings) is marked and numbed by the onslaught of American media and politics that saturate the Internet, television, radio, and smartphone: “the way things are going, children/ will have to upgrade to more amusing.” Much like advertisements or news stories vying for viewer’s attention, the book intentionally overwhelms, eschewing sections; the author instead differentiates the poems by repetition, creating a sort of echo chamber, similar to the way viral information cycles through social media platforms. In one of his six deliciously vicious “Pat Robertson Transubstantiation Engine” poems, he writes, “O heavenly/ flogger you should be watching me/ on cable right now.” Other poems are marked by a charming self-consciousness: “Maybe certain poets should have breathalyzers/ connected to their computers or typewriters or hands/ so they can’t do what I’m doing right now to this poem.” But Bibbins really shines when he addresses the immediate from a different space. His eight-part poem “Medusa” is deft and haunting. Written without fanfare, the images reflect contemporary American violence: “There are/ as many bodies in the palace/ moat—they are their own/ country, even if their shapes are no longer theirs.” (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly