{"product_id":"9781555976705","title":"How to Dance as the Roof Caves In : Poems","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eHow to Dance as the Roof Caves In\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Nick Lantz\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Nick Lantz writes with elegant simplicity. Most poets take a lifetime to learn as much.\" —Linda Gregerson\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI say \u003ci\u003eI love\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eI love\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eI love\u003c\/i\u003e. However, the window\u003cbr\u003ewill not close. However, the hawk searches\u003cbr\u003efor its nest after a storm. However, the discarded\u003cbr\u003enail longs to hide its nakedness inside the tire.\u003cbr\u003e     —from \"Fork with Two Tines Pushed Together\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eHow to Dance as the Roof Caves In\u003c\/i\u003e examines America as it faces a recession of collective mood and collective wealth. In a central sequence, the \"housing bubble\" reaches its bursting point when, with hilarious and biting outcomes, real estate developers hire a married couple and other down-and-out \"extras\" to stage a fake community to lure prospective investors. In these marvelous poems, Nick Lantz describes the changing American landscape with great imagination and sharp wit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Satirical and darkly comic. . . . Lantz doesn't obfuscate; urgently employing direct expression, his poems 'let the path of a bird circling \/ a field describe the dome.'” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Lantz's lyrics are by turns blunt and delicate, confrontational and full of lamentation.” —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Lantz's tactic is to show us the ludicrous in our daily life machines. His brain is a great piece of software and the data base is satire. This is theater of the absurd--bold, individual, ambitious, nimble, slightly cynical--a solid identity, sustained page after page. For consumers of poetry, you can't find a better buy.” —\u003ci\u003eWashington Independent Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Nick Lantz is a dark satirist, a subversive eye trained on the wasted lawns of suburbia and a cunning ear attuned to the frighteningly funny bits of language that assail us in mass media. At the same time, he is a heart-breaker, a poet who'd risk it all for love. As my aunt used to say at suppertime, get in here and get yourself some of this.” —\u003ci\u003eD. A. Powell\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“An unsettling Jeremiad leveled at today's America. . . . Nick Lantz has taken his place among the central poets of his generation.” —\u003ci\u003eDavid Wojahn\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“When the power players of deception and economic manipulation jack us around in a housing bubble, and we require someone to out those sonsabitches, and wax acerbic toward the hustlers, and wax empathetic toward the victimized and the confused . . . who ya gonna call? Who ya gonna hire to illuminate our absurdity with a blaze of the absurdist? Nick Lantz, I hope, whose long sequence 'How to Stage a Community' dissects our culture's fakeitude and on-the-makeitude with a wicked stropped-keen blade and an unsettlingly complex vision. But I don't mean that this is a book of nothing but public concerns. Everywhere, an inventively lyric, inward imagination is at work. . . . As we blurbers say: If Rilke and \u003ci\u003eThe Daily Show\u003c\/i\u003e had a love child....” —\u003ci\u003eAlbert Goldbarth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781555976705\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40595807273166,"sku":"9781555976705","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_41f4a21d-8b42-455d-af7e-18b0f8e3ffe0.jpg?v=1637841400","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781555976705","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}