{"product_id":"9780991429837","title":"From the Author's Private Collection","description":"\u003cbr\u003ePoetry. Art. \"'I'm dressed like a Jamestown cannibal \/ In a city of mistake babies with e-cash,' writes Amling in an astute and challenging debut collection that's both deeply poignant and darkly humorous. Like a deadpan oracle or font of offbeat wisdom you didn't know you needed to know, Amling acts as a guide through the ersatz Epicureanism of contemporary America, where 'freedom still remains monetary.' He opens with a brief series of poems that are composed of cuts and outtakes—'Like a polygraph of a satellite'—that serves as a junkyard ars poetica. A visual artist adept in the medium of collage, he expresses these poems as social critique delivered through a signal scrambler. But his critique often extends to the practice of making art itself: 'I know many people living lives of artistic practice \/ that cannot take care of themselves, \/ and not out of paraplegic circumstance. \/\/ Art has not refined them.' Reading through 'Ill Estates,' 'Rare and Special Interests,' and 'Liquid Assets,' one encounters characteristically playful statements such as 'It is not so hard \/ To accept meaninglessness \/ Acceptance is very meaningful.' Amling has designed a gallery installation of poetry that one returns to for the pleasure of its unsolvable mysteries, 'A collection of space \/ That I curate \/ Where I forgive myself.'\"—\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"'Poetry, like cat urine, can ruin the integrity of a room,' writes Eric Amling, but 'it can also be a stealthy dominatrix.' It is and does both in these startled, subversive poems, which churn up a disordered glee. But it's reassuring to know that 'All of these works will be filed in a custom matrix \/ Approved by third-tier analysts \/ In a hall of dueling national anthems.'\"—John Ashbery\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Birds, LLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47008934592752,"sku":"9780991429837","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780991429837_p0.jpg?v=1763943614","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780991429837","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}