Double Zero

Poetry. DOUBLE ZERO is the inventive new collection by Chris Hosea, the poet chosen by John Ashbery for the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Drawing on popular song, contemporary multimedia art, and personal experience, DOUBLE ZERO presents tuneful, densely meaningful lyrics. Like collaged sheet music, these poems offer a wealth of opportunities for creative interpretation and performance.

"[Hosea] somehow subsumes derision and erotic energy and comes out on top... One feels plunged in a wave of happening that is about to crest."—John Ashbery

"Exemplary... Vibrant, quick witted... He inculcates the restless quotidian in a swirl of modal energy run-on manic constructs... I felt the restless, surreal pulse of this new poet."—Anne Waldman

"By turns melancholy, fragmented, and true to feeling, Chris Hosea's DOUBLE ZERO accurately maps the experience of the contemporary subject. A book-length artist statement via linguistic selfies, these are disjunctive yet salient texts draped across a through line of language passionately tuned to life's fearful moments and occasional clarities."—Ben Fama

"An inventive approach to language that is as relentlessly provocative as it is approachable."—Publisher s Weekly