Description
Fiction. The figure of emotional temperature predominates. The formula: hot content, cold treatment. Three of these are spoken by Miss Chiquita. The United Fruit Company during the Cold War; two myths about the discovery of laughter. Tender love lyrics in a domestic setting; vows of love are exchanged. An extended verse essay on tickling. Like Antonin Scalia, this book believes in the devil. The human soul figures.
"Who put this clipboard in my hand? What is that chemical odor? Why am I wearing this white coat? Kunin's COLD GENIUS tweezers deep feelings. It startles with pleasure and squeaks with pain through a relentless formal labyrinth. He is a master of the awkward sublime, poetry at its most clinical. I take pleasure in it, and that troubles me."—Jennifer Moxley
"Aaron Kunin keeps me honest—his reading, the extremity of his intelligence, the radical rigor (and weird humor) of his poetry and prose. His Learnedness is almost anachronistic and yet I feel like he might, except for his lack of cynicism, be my most contemporary contemporary. I look up to him. it occurs to me often to be grateful for his work."—Ben Lerner
"Aaron Kunin, odd funny grim philosopher poet, brilliant and heartbreaking."—Catherine Wagner
Author Bio
Aaron Kunin is the author of FOLDING RULER STAR (Fence, 2005), a collection of small poems about shame; THE MANDARIN (Fence, 2008), a novel; THE SORE THROAT & OTHER POEMS (Fence Books, 2010); GRACE PERIOD: NOTEBOOKS, 1998-2007 (Letter Machine Editions, 2013), a book of aphorisms, sketches, and fragments; COLD GENIUS (Fence Books, 2014), and LOVE THREE (Wave Books, 2019). Character as Form, a book of criticism, is also forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He lives in California where he works as a literature professor at Pomona College.
Author City: CLAREMONT, CA USA