Poetry. In this wry, intimate, and heartbreaking collection, Chris Hayes records the exact weight of generational trauma, mental and physical illness, addiction, marital alienation, self alienation: that is, all the general malfuckery that comes with living in bodies that often refuse to cooperate with what we want or whatever we’ve promised others. What makes this examination of ordinary American dysfunction extraordinary is Hayes’s positively dazzling way with language. The poems here are as carefully constructed as the finest bespoke suit, and yet they retain a musical ease and integrity of line that reveal a poet who’s expertly sure of his craft. Hayes’s sense of personal authenticity, philosophical maturity, and literary intelligence here are anything but ordinary. A stunning collection of poems.-Erin Belieu