On TV

What's ON TV? Forty-odd poems appropriated from the autobiographies of beloved actors, genial hosts, successful producers, respected news and sports anchors, and even a few reality stars. It's an intertextual, parasocial channel-surf across decades of broadcast, cable, and streaming television. Who's ON TV? Oprah, Padma, and Shonda. Lumpy, Spock, and Screech. The Lone Ranger and Lorelai Gilmore. A real housewife and a fixer-upper. Nellie Oleson and Danny Partridge. Mankind, Captain Stubing, Bart Simpson, and more.

"William Walsh's ON TV is an expert and revealing chorus of celebrity voices. Quoting exclusively from passages in each celebrity's memoir, Walsh's wit-and ironic criticism-emerges from his choices and juxtapositions as well as from the variety of forms on the page, from run-together prose to floating verses, stanzas, line breaks, and use of spaces (and silences)." -DeWitt Henry, author of Foundlings

"ON TV is poetics at its finest-shifting and constructing emotions first created by celebrities, Walsh forms a whole new layer of sensations, a cast molding, perhaps, in which fresh perspectives are given through a unique beam of sunlight. We become spectators, twice over, as we realize how biographical prose can morph into a deeper meaning, sometimes sad-sometimes humorous-but always relatable on multiple levels. The stars are in reach, and Walsh takes reality and bends it through the lens of language and somehow makes it even more real than before. All we can do as readers is sprinkle a little salt on our popcorn and become entranced with the magical show." - Shome Dasgupta, author of Iron Oxide