Junk
1st Edition, Kindle Edition
Zando · Ebook · May 8, 2018
An NPR Best Book of the Year From 2018 Whiting Award winner Tommy Pico, Junk is a book-length break-up poem that explores the experience of loss and erasure, both personal and cultural.
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- Who it’s for
- A breakup poem pairs personal and cultural erasure with sharp contrasts, pop-cultural nods, and snack-food wit.
- Themes
- Personal and cultural loss, Identity and cultural erasure
- Genres
- Native American Poetry, LGBTQ+ Poetry, Poetry About Death
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Start with this bookAbout this book
An NPR Best Book of the Year From 2018 Whiting Award winner Tommy Pico, Junk is a book-length break-up poem that explores the experience of loss and erasure, both personal and cultural. The third book in Tommy Pico’s Teebs trilogy, Junk is a breakup poem in couplets: ice floe and hot lava, a tribute to Janet Jackson and nacho cheese. In the static that follows the loss of a job or an apartment or a boyfriend, what can you grab onto for orientation?
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The narrator wonders what happens to the sense of self when the illusion of security has been stripped away. And for an indigenous person, how do these lost markers of identity echo larger cultural losses and erasures in a changing political landscape? In part taking its cue from A.R. Ammons’s Garbage, Teebs names this liminal space “Junk,” in the sense that a junk shop is full of old things waiting for their next use; different items that collectively become indistinct. But can there be a comfort outside the anxiety of utility? An appreciation of “being” for the sake of being? And will there be Chili Cheese Fritos?
Loss, With Bite
A breakup poem pairs personal and cultural erasure with sharp contrasts, pop-cultural nods, and snack-food wit.
Come here for
- Couplets that put ice floes beside hot lava
- Questions of identity, loss, and what remains useful
Expect
- A playful register alongside serious reckonings
- A book-length breakup poem with cultural reach
Where it sits
| LGBTQ+ Poetry | 93% |
|---|---|
| Native American Poetry | 60% |
| Poetry About Death | 47% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Native American Poetry
- LGBTQ+ Poetry
- Poetry About Death
- Authors
- Tommy Pico
- Publisher
- Zando
- Published
- May 8, 2018
- Format
- Ebook
- Theme
- Personal and cultural loss · Identity and cultural erasure
- Reading lane
- Native American Poetry