Poetry. Ferrell's long awaited first book of poetry is an edgy, fantastic, and optimistic look at someone trying to read (and live in other ways) through their thirties. It 'does' the subject: including pop fantasies of hares, fluteplayers, nudes, whores and Proust; (Marianne) Moore-style constructions of a gamut from Gosse to Guns 'n Roses; sequences inspired by the songs of DJ Shadow, Blur and Oasis. A poetry of phrases rather than lines, of a mind thinking (Stein's 'entity') rather than a presentation of thought/identity. Following Brecht, suspense is held in high disregard; following Baudrillard, a democracy is offered: each poem a small celebration of the now, like a promiscuous Frank O'Hara with too many secrets. It's about balancing: influences/sources; what's written/what's unwritten; resistances/acceptances of meaning. God gave us irony to trick the devil, but the devil was already inside.