Book of Accident: Poems

Beckian Fritz Goldberg invites the reader into a shadowy atmosphere where her language prowls among strange images – hummingbirds become a fistful of violet amphetamines and desire gnaws away like a live rat sewed up inside of us . Reading this collection is like entering a graphic novel with missing panels, a noir world of queasy glints and feral adolescents, a world where no one has to love you . Characters go by odd names – Torture Boy, Skin Girl, Lala Petite, Wolf Boy (his body pale as the plucked end of light ) – punk kids fending for themselves in the expressionistic version of those old stories that began, Let’s take the children out to the woods / and leave them . And on every page, there’s Goldberg’s hard-edged wit, with the speed and flash of a video game. These poems show mercy but give no ground. They make you feel heartbroken and frightened and exhilarated at the same time.