Timestamp

Breskin's jaunty, wry--and always spot on--observations of our increasingly outrageous world pull us more deeply into that world, igniting our sense of responsibility, inciting us to act. It's political poetry in the most enabling sense--it reminds us that the political is rooted in the polis--of the citizens; it reminds us that we belong--and that belonging brings not only obligations, but also kinship deep enough to resist what we must. And--hooray hooray!--his clear map of our plummet to imminent disaster also manages to be screamingly funny. --Cole Swensen Out of the smashup of our vernacular--its mangled memes and wonked-out argot--David Breskin's Timestamp reveals the invaluable quality that Thelonious Monk once called "Ugly Beauty." Even as Breskin takes a good look at the worst, his sentences, lines and phrases stand as triumphs of the imagination. Horrific, vivid, hilarious, and strangely glorious, these are the poems the age deserves. --Peter Campion