The Book of Goodbyes

WINNER OF THE 2013 JAMES LAUGHLIN AWARDWinner of the 2013 Isabella Gardner Poetry AwardThe Los Angeles Times described Jillian Weise’s debut poetry collection as a fearless dissection of the taboo and the hidden. In this second collection she forwards her bold, sexy poetics by chronicling an affair with a man she names Big Logos. These poems throw into question sex, the law, identity, sentiment, and power, shifting between lyric and narrative, hyper-realism and magical realism, fact and fiction.I’ve Been Waiting All Night I reckon you were asleep with your girlbefore the phone rang. Make something up. I’ve been waiting all night to tell youabout the couple in post-War France,
the woman fresh in her graveand the man who didn’t like his mistress dead,

no sir, and so exhumed her, to the dismayof his wife, who had him arrested for the stink he made.She was reburied, returned to the dead. After jail, he dug her up to fuck again.Attached suction cups and crafted a wig from a broom. You can go now.I’m more in the mood than you’re used to. Jillian Weise–an above-the-knee amputee with a computerized prosthetic–identifies as a cyborg and has discussed the identity in essays for the New York Times and Drunken Boat. Her books include The Amputee’s Guide to Sex (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and The Colony (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press, 2010). She is an assistant professor at Clemson University, a contributing editor at the
South Carolina Review, and co-director of the Annual Clemson Literary Festival.