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Tap Out : Poems
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Tap Out
Author(s): Edgar Kunz
"Charts the gritty, physical terrain of blue-collar masculinity."―New York Times New & Noteworthy
“Kunz arrives with real poetic talent.”—The Millions, “Must Read Poetry”
"[A] gritty, insightful debut." —Washington Post
Winner of the 2019 Julia Ward Howe Award for Poetry
Approach these poems as short stories, plainspoken lyric essays, controlled arcs of a bildungsroman, then again as narrative verse. Tap Out, Edgar Kunz’s debut collection, reckons with his working‑poor heritage. Within are poignant, troubling portraits of blue‑collar lives, mental health in contemporary America, and what is conveyed and passed on through touch and words―violent, or simply absent.
Yet Kunz’s verses are unsentimental, visceral, sprawling between oxys and Bitcoin, crossing the country restlessly. They grapple with the shame and guilt of choosing to leave the culture Kunz was born and raised in, the identity crises caused by class mobility. They pull the reader close, alternating fierce whispers and proud shouts about what working hands are capable of and the different ways a mind and body can leave a life they can no longer endure. This hungry new voice asks: after you make the choice to leave, what is left behind, what can you make of it, and at what cost?
Review(s):
Winner of the 2019 Nautilus Book Gold Award for Poetry "[A] gritty, insightful debut." —Washington Post “A whirlwind debut. Stories of sclerotic lives told in wrought images, Kunz arrives with real poetic talent…[he] pulls us into his poems and keeps us there through crisp detail…(A hint: trust poets who show back to you the images you’ve seen in glimpses and tucked in the back of your mind.)…Tap Out lives in a bittersweet world, and does so well, but there’s also fine touches here: a mother who has had enough, a son who sees beauty in loss…”—Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions, “Must Read Poetry” “This powerful collection reads like an elegy and a confession, like a slap to the face followed by a plaintive kiss, like watching bad things happen and knowing that you’re complicit. Yet cutting through every one of these essential poems is a gritty, naturalistic beauty that makes me want to read them again and again. Tap Out is a gem, and Edgar Kunz is a major talent.” — Andre Dubus III, author of Gone So Long and Townie "There’s so much to say about Kunz’s debut poetry collection...As gritty as the close-up of calloused, grease-covered hands that serve as its cover, echoing the way Kunz offers portraits of his “working-poor heritage” with unapologetic proximity and poignant verse. But the matter of which these hands are positioned unassumingly, as though caught mid-prayer or plea, suggest the earnest, yet carefully unsentimental, tenderness that these poems carry throughout the book. Kunz writes about the mental health of blue‑collar lives, through the blueprint of narratives lifted from a distant relationship of a father and a son. While contextualized in contemporary America, the poems hit close to the reality of several Filipinos, especially in this time of the pandemic when we are forced to confront the aching gaps between socio-economic divides.” — CNN Philippines “These poems have a pervasive physicality that is both rewarding and horrifying…Arresting imagery, unexpected detail, brilliant use of tensions, a flowing rhythm and overall accessibility make this a collection to be read and re-read. Tap Out superbly mines the beauty, brutality, tensions and contradictions of working-class U.S. communities.”–Shelf Awareness "There is no ground of existence that does not require (or fail to sustain) its poet. This proposition, requiring continual re-proving, has found again its confirmation in Edgar Kunz’s first book. In the lineage of Levine, Jordan, and Laux, Tap Out presents the data of blows received and taken in fully. Yet these poems do not return blow for blow; they offer instead an unflinching, continued allegiance to abiding connection. Without summation or comment, they remind us that all alchemies of being are possible. Kunz’s precision-tool language of memory and witness enlarges, pivots, pieces together the broken into a world made new, survivable, holdable, forgiven.” — Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty and Come, Thief "Kunz’s debut collection is a hard-hitting journey through tightly crafted poems that capture a culture on the edge of an abyss. Kunz’s work is haunted by ghosts, some long-gone, others still wandering the corridors of memory...Kunz's solid and rewarding first book reminds us that in the battle to survive and to live, a poetic light can shine through."—Booklist “
ISBN: 9781328518125
Author(s): Edgar Kunz
"Charts the gritty, physical terrain of blue-collar masculinity."―New York Times New & Noteworthy
“Kunz arrives with real poetic talent.”—The Millions, “Must Read Poetry”
"[A] gritty, insightful debut." —Washington Post
Winner of the 2019 Julia Ward Howe Award for Poetry
Approach these poems as short stories, plainspoken lyric essays, controlled arcs of a bildungsroman, then again as narrative verse. Tap Out, Edgar Kunz’s debut collection, reckons with his working‑poor heritage. Within are poignant, troubling portraits of blue‑collar lives, mental health in contemporary America, and what is conveyed and passed on through touch and words―violent, or simply absent.
Yet Kunz’s verses are unsentimental, visceral, sprawling between oxys and Bitcoin, crossing the country restlessly. They grapple with the shame and guilt of choosing to leave the culture Kunz was born and raised in, the identity crises caused by class mobility. They pull the reader close, alternating fierce whispers and proud shouts about what working hands are capable of and the different ways a mind and body can leave a life they can no longer endure. This hungry new voice asks: after you make the choice to leave, what is left behind, what can you make of it, and at what cost?
Review(s):
Winner of the 2019 Nautilus Book Gold Award for Poetry "[A] gritty, insightful debut." —Washington Post “A whirlwind debut. Stories of sclerotic lives told in wrought images, Kunz arrives with real poetic talent…[he] pulls us into his poems and keeps us there through crisp detail…(A hint: trust poets who show back to you the images you’ve seen in glimpses and tucked in the back of your mind.)…Tap Out lives in a bittersweet world, and does so well, but there’s also fine touches here: a mother who has had enough, a son who sees beauty in loss…”—Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions, “Must Read Poetry” “This powerful collection reads like an elegy and a confession, like a slap to the face followed by a plaintive kiss, like watching bad things happen and knowing that you’re complicit. Yet cutting through every one of these essential poems is a gritty, naturalistic beauty that makes me want to read them again and again. Tap Out is a gem, and Edgar Kunz is a major talent.” — Andre Dubus III, author of Gone So Long and Townie "There’s so much to say about Kunz’s debut poetry collection...As gritty as the close-up of calloused, grease-covered hands that serve as its cover, echoing the way Kunz offers portraits of his “working-poor heritage” with unapologetic proximity and poignant verse. But the matter of which these hands are positioned unassumingly, as though caught mid-prayer or plea, suggest the earnest, yet carefully unsentimental, tenderness that these poems carry throughout the book. Kunz writes about the mental health of blue‑collar lives, through the blueprint of narratives lifted from a distant relationship of a father and a son. While contextualized in contemporary America, the poems hit close to the reality of several Filipinos, especially in this time of the pandemic when we are forced to confront the aching gaps between socio-economic divides.” — CNN Philippines “These poems have a pervasive physicality that is both rewarding and horrifying…Arresting imagery, unexpected detail, brilliant use of tensions, a flowing rhythm and overall accessibility make this a collection to be read and re-read. Tap Out superbly mines the beauty, brutality, tensions and contradictions of working-class U.S. communities.”–Shelf Awareness "There is no ground of existence that does not require (or fail to sustain) its poet. This proposition, requiring continual re-proving, has found again its confirmation in Edgar Kunz’s first book. In the lineage of Levine, Jordan, and Laux, Tap Out presents the data of blows received and taken in fully. Yet these poems do not return blow for blow; they offer instead an unflinching, continued allegiance to abiding connection. Without summation or comment, they remind us that all alchemies of being are possible. Kunz’s precision-tool language of memory and witness enlarges, pivots, pieces together the broken into a world made new, survivable, holdable, forgiven.” — Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty and Come, Thief "Kunz’s debut collection is a hard-hitting journey through tightly crafted poems that capture a culture on the edge of an abyss. Kunz’s work is haunted by ghosts, some long-gone, others still wandering the corridors of memory...Kunz's solid and rewarding first book reminds us that in the battle to survive and to live, a poetic light can shine through."—Booklist “
ISBN: 9781328518125