A New Kind of Country

Poetry. Art. Kyle Schlesinger has always written the kinds of poems I want as conversations with the world. I mean, Jesus Christ, look at who he dedicates this book to! Right there is the dinner party for A NEW KIND OF COUNTRY, and I want to be there, even if I have to sit at the kids’ table! Read this book, and like me, start all over again! You will ask, as the poet does, ‘Which way is America / Sound not a word / Which way is America’ and you will listen for it.-CA Conrad

Kyle Schlesinger’s poems and prose texts speak in a voice that gets beneath the skin of these times, pointing us in and beyond ourselves. ‘The words are in the body / The body is in the mind’ he tells us. And ‘What’s on television’ he asks, then admits ‘Just another hallucination.’ Green light and pink lighting permeate this work. ‘You wouldn’t believe it / If I told you / That I was where / You thought you were / When we heard the news.’ We need these words of Kyle’s to help us shoulder that news-‘fake and otherwise-aimed at us each day. The two-line poem, 'Split, ’ is worth quoting in full: ‘We were / Now we’re.’ And poems such as ‘It’s a Freak Out’ deliver a sophisticated humor. A wholly original book.-Margaret Randall