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How to Monetize Despair
How to Monetize Despair is a captivating exploration of a wide range of subjects and ideas, from traumatic loss and the sorrows of human relationships to the natural but absurd world of neurotic caterpillars and philosophical cockroaches. With a unique blend of imagery, self-help inspired titles, and Mottolo's peculiar brand of humor, this collection takes readers on a one-of-a-kind journey through human experience. This collection is a must-read for anyone seeking to explore the complexities of trauma and struggle, and to encounter a sea creature or butterfly along the way.
- GenresPoetry
102 pages, Paperback
Published December 12, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 24, 2024
I wish I’d written this🔥
April 17, 2024
This intimate poetry collection is both a candid look at the human experience and a surreal exploration of the natural world. In under a hundred pages, Mottolo managed to make me feel just about every emotion on the spectrum.This collection is an absolute rollercoaster to read!
How to Monetize Despair has some beautiful imagery and was a thought-provoking read.
How to Monetize Despair has some beautiful imagery and was a thought-provoking read.
March 1, 2024
Lisa Mottolo’s How to Monetize Despair
There aren’t as many birds in these poems as I’d expected. This is neither a good nor a bad thing, but it is a thing. There are three birds on the front cover, and a birdhead peeking out from the back cover. There are birds in the poems, yes, but birds on not a stand-in for grief or despair, though there is plenty of each here. But the birds are not mere ornament, but a way of stabilizing (even in their absence) grief, despair, and especially uncertainty in the act of humanity. It’s weird to be a human, isn’t it? It’s strange to have thoughts, to paraphrase Jeff Mangum “how strange to be anything at all.” The heart is strange.
When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Oregon (a state college with a bird mascot) we were reading Yeats (or someone else), “The Wild Swans at Coolie” (or some other poem), and a student raised his hand and asked, half-seriously of the professor, “Why are we reading poems about birds? Isn’t that like writing poems about the moon? Isn’t this terribly cliché?” (or something like that). It was at that moment that I had half a mind to slap that supercilious dumbfuck across his smug face, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I vowed to become a poet who wrote about birds, and sometimes moons.
So I feel a kinship with Mottolo, not only because we both like birds a good deal, and not just because we feel the strangeness of humanity, but because we write about both of things and people probably only think that we’re a little bit weird.
Mottolo often highlights the way our thinking, our self-talk, often folds in on itself, creating both complications and new paths, different possibilities. Instead of declaring, it often demurs and is stronger for it. Take these lines:
All the students are women,
And I wonder if they’re more prone to trauma
Or if it’s because the trauma is often the result of men.
I’m not saying it is, I’m just wondering if it is.
It’s at first, a tautological thought that is immediately undercut by the speaker’s acknowledgement of uncertainty—the thinking “out loud” as it were. Writing about trauma is fraught, and the poem almost successfully evades the task. There is a constant re-figuring, and reevaluating in these poems that continually revise themselves, as the speaker revises her thoughts to perhaps, fill in a space or spaces that are largely unknown. In “The Hummingbird’s Displays,” the titular bird “exact[s] revenge for some avian cultural issue / humans will never understand.” This stuff is ha-ha funny as it limns the tragedies of the mundane:
This is my life now,
missing one beautiful thing
because I’m transfixed by another,
and some people would say this is disgusting.
While Mottolo’s speaker recognizes failure and shame, her poise doesn’t allow self-pity. The mode is one of serious/sincere questioning that takes place amid mixed horror and levity:
My grandfather’s wife asked, “does that look like your
mommy?”
with a smile. I said, “no,” because it did not,
because my mom never looked dead before.
She responded by just smiling, bigger,
and I still don’t understand what the fuck that was about.
Or in the poem “Immune and Joyful Children,” which ends:
When we travelled south, the b illboards would say hell is real. And even as children, we would say “that is silly.” But we would also wonder.
This is a book of broken things, hollow wings, tragic and magical (in a transformative, not deceptive sense) thinking. I haven’t given enough attention to the fact that the mostly casual language sometimes crystallizes into slightly “bent” meanings or syntax, highlighting this or that remarkable detail, as in this passage:
Next time I break a coffee mug, I will go back to New York and bury it with my mother. I will situate some sensitive looking twigs into a cross. And I will feel that I have done something, but I will have done nothing at all.
Or the ending of “Write About Death”: “I value a tragedy / that hangs around the neck / pretty.”
The odd phrasing of the former passage (situate, sensitive looking twigs) and the isolated “pretty” of the latter, where we expect an adverb are small tells to the emotion underneath the surface of so many of these poems that feign steely indifference, or voice worries of ineffectuality. This book is full of many such moments, and it’s a joy to discover them.
Finally, I’ll quote entirely this 14-line ars poetica (you can decide whether it’s a sonnet) “Orange Belly”:
Outside our window, we had an orange-bellied
Trogon—a magnificent green and orange bird—
keep returning its plump body to the same branch
to observe our darkened naked bodies at night,
our sunscreen-soaked limbs at day, and its black
eyeball swallowed us in a fascination we didn’t deserve
as would chocolate cake or pornography.
No one has a right to this pleasure, I thought.
We had been squinting into thick patches of leaves
for five hours, trying to find this feathered fellow,
only to open the door of our Airbnb
and have the beginning of this poem happen.
I wouldn’t exactly say he was mocking us,
but you know, he looked like that kind of guy.
There aren’t as many birds in these poems as I’d expected. This is neither a good nor a bad thing, but it is a thing. There are three birds on the front cover, and a birdhead peeking out from the back cover. There are birds in the poems, yes, but birds on not a stand-in for grief or despair, though there is plenty of each here. But the birds are not mere ornament, but a way of stabilizing (even in their absence) grief, despair, and especially uncertainty in the act of humanity. It’s weird to be a human, isn’t it? It’s strange to have thoughts, to paraphrase Jeff Mangum “how strange to be anything at all.” The heart is strange.
When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Oregon (a state college with a bird mascot) we were reading Yeats (or someone else), “The Wild Swans at Coolie” (or some other poem), and a student raised his hand and asked, half-seriously of the professor, “Why are we reading poems about birds? Isn’t that like writing poems about the moon? Isn’t this terribly cliché?” (or something like that). It was at that moment that I had half a mind to slap that supercilious dumbfuck across his smug face, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I vowed to become a poet who wrote about birds, and sometimes moons.
So I feel a kinship with Mottolo, not only because we both like birds a good deal, and not just because we feel the strangeness of humanity, but because we write about both of things and people probably only think that we’re a little bit weird.
Mottolo often highlights the way our thinking, our self-talk, often folds in on itself, creating both complications and new paths, different possibilities. Instead of declaring, it often demurs and is stronger for it. Take these lines:
All the students are women,
And I wonder if they’re more prone to trauma
Or if it’s because the trauma is often the result of men.
I’m not saying it is, I’m just wondering if it is.
It’s at first, a tautological thought that is immediately undercut by the speaker’s acknowledgement of uncertainty—the thinking “out loud” as it were. Writing about trauma is fraught, and the poem almost successfully evades the task. There is a constant re-figuring, and reevaluating in these poems that continually revise themselves, as the speaker revises her thoughts to perhaps, fill in a space or spaces that are largely unknown. In “The Hummingbird’s Displays,” the titular bird “exact[s] revenge for some avian cultural issue / humans will never understand.” This stuff is ha-ha funny as it limns the tragedies of the mundane:
This is my life now,
missing one beautiful thing
because I’m transfixed by another,
and some people would say this is disgusting.
While Mottolo’s speaker recognizes failure and shame, her poise doesn’t allow self-pity. The mode is one of serious/sincere questioning that takes place amid mixed horror and levity:
My grandfather’s wife asked, “does that look like your
mommy?”
with a smile. I said, “no,” because it did not,
because my mom never looked dead before.
She responded by just smiling, bigger,
and I still don’t understand what the fuck that was about.
Or in the poem “Immune and Joyful Children,” which ends:
When we travelled south, the b illboards would say hell is real. And even as children, we would say “that is silly.” But we would also wonder.
This is a book of broken things, hollow wings, tragic and magical (in a transformative, not deceptive sense) thinking. I haven’t given enough attention to the fact that the mostly casual language sometimes crystallizes into slightly “bent” meanings or syntax, highlighting this or that remarkable detail, as in this passage:
Next time I break a coffee mug, I will go back to New York and bury it with my mother. I will situate some sensitive looking twigs into a cross. And I will feel that I have done something, but I will have done nothing at all.
Or the ending of “Write About Death”: “I value a tragedy / that hangs around the neck / pretty.”
The odd phrasing of the former passage (situate, sensitive looking twigs) and the isolated “pretty” of the latter, where we expect an adverb are small tells to the emotion underneath the surface of so many of these poems that feign steely indifference, or voice worries of ineffectuality. This book is full of many such moments, and it’s a joy to discover them.
Finally, I’ll quote entirely this 14-line ars poetica (you can decide whether it’s a sonnet) “Orange Belly”:
Outside our window, we had an orange-bellied
Trogon—a magnificent green and orange bird—
keep returning its plump body to the same branch
to observe our darkened naked bodies at night,
our sunscreen-soaked limbs at day, and its black
eyeball swallowed us in a fascination we didn’t deserve
as would chocolate cake or pornography.
No one has a right to this pleasure, I thought.
We had been squinting into thick patches of leaves
for five hours, trying to find this feathered fellow,
only to open the door of our Airbnb
and have the beginning of this poem happen.
I wouldn’t exactly say he was mocking us,
but you know, he looked like that kind of guy.
March 28, 2025
The cover of this book called out to me—long before reading. In this poetry collection you will find an unusual amount of truth. That's always where poetry belongs best of all. In the folds of a person's life, gradually exposed. Writer Lisa Mottolo has crafted this collection intentionally. But what is her intention? To share the grief we all feel at some point in our lives, when someone very dear to us, dies? Or is it more? A consideration of what is means to be human, the absurdity of trying to understand anything? This prepossessed author has a strange ancient wisdom about her—the kind of awareness that uses very few words and needs no proof. She seems to just know. As the reader you find this disquieting, intense, passionate and keenly preternatural. There are not many writers who can say so much in such a little space, without using any ego or any tricks. Mottolo would be the kind of writer who would whet your appetite for reading even if she'd not endured the unimaginable. That she has, lends her even more potency. Her craft is slightly terrifying in its sheer accuracy and fluency with language and meaning. She writes in ways I hardly ever witness. It's not a stream of consciousness, it's not confessional poetry, it's like a card reader, turning over card after card and sharing in a quiet voice, your fortune.
"My Mother doesn't drink black coffee, anymore. She drinks what is brewed from the grounds of the cemetery and it pulls her through the spacious night like a whale's closing jaw."
Disquieting, essential and profoundly gifted, Mottolo's writing stands out from the crowd by simply being unselfconscious. She's not writing to win an award, pass an exam, make friends or gain influence. She writes in a quiet, calm, precise way, that is the opposite of free-spiritedness but possesses a kind of aura of magic nonetheless. Mottolo inhabits her writing. She becomes it and it becomes her. There is a phantasmagoric surrealism to her journey and it becomes addictive. I read this in one sitting and then remained still for a time, pictures in my head like a cinefilm, playing long after the movie has ended. I think Lisa Mottolo is one of the finest living poets of her generation because she's able to pluck from her chest, the lividity of meaning and survival and just as she will sit in a summer dress, playing with her song birds, not speaking aloud, her poems sit in myriad colors and epochs and send a song bird through time, glittering and brightly colored, like crystals growing from the earth, becoming an ocean of glass.
"i own a book on walking through those kinds of forests that don't have paths. Forests as dark as the insides of our organs."
There is such grief and beauty side-by-side, we are famished in trying to sustain this feeling evoked from her poems and the chambers of our hearts weave around each other in a crazed dance at the crescendo of this beautiful collection. Mottolo's taut, prescient poetry is something to behold and become hungry for repeatedly. If you find one book worth gifting to lovers of poetry, it should be Lisa Mottolo's debut collection. It is ravishingly lovely and filled with such pure and unwavering light.
"My Mother doesn't drink black coffee, anymore. She drinks what is brewed from the grounds of the cemetery and it pulls her through the spacious night like a whale's closing jaw."
Disquieting, essential and profoundly gifted, Mottolo's writing stands out from the crowd by simply being unselfconscious. She's not writing to win an award, pass an exam, make friends or gain influence. She writes in a quiet, calm, precise way, that is the opposite of free-spiritedness but possesses a kind of aura of magic nonetheless. Mottolo inhabits her writing. She becomes it and it becomes her. There is a phantasmagoric surrealism to her journey and it becomes addictive. I read this in one sitting and then remained still for a time, pictures in my head like a cinefilm, playing long after the movie has ended. I think Lisa Mottolo is one of the finest living poets of her generation because she's able to pluck from her chest, the lividity of meaning and survival and just as she will sit in a summer dress, playing with her song birds, not speaking aloud, her poems sit in myriad colors and epochs and send a song bird through time, glittering and brightly colored, like crystals growing from the earth, becoming an ocean of glass.
"i own a book on walking through those kinds of forests that don't have paths. Forests as dark as the insides of our organs."
There is such grief and beauty side-by-side, we are famished in trying to sustain this feeling evoked from her poems and the chambers of our hearts weave around each other in a crazed dance at the crescendo of this beautiful collection. Mottolo's taut, prescient poetry is something to behold and become hungry for repeatedly. If you find one book worth gifting to lovers of poetry, it should be Lisa Mottolo's debut collection. It is ravishingly lovely and filled with such pure and unwavering light.
February 12, 2024
Lisa Mottolo's How to Monetize Despair presents an evocative and intimate collection of poems, weaving personal experiences and reflections into a tapestry of themes ranging from loss to existential musings. This collection, which navigates through the terrain of deeply personal topics, showcases Mottolo's skill in capturing the essence of human emotions and experiences.
In poems like "Obituary for a Small Parrot," Mottolo offers a glimpse into her personal life, recounting the poignant moment of bringing her parrot home in a cardboard box. She also delves into the mundanity and unexpected profundity of daily life, as seen in "Memoriam for the Grocery," where a simple act of selecting avocados in a grocery store becomes a moment of introspection. Her poem "Sonder" explores the multifaceted nature of the English language, highlighting our continuous, though often unsuccessful, attempts to make sense of the universe. Mottolo's ability to connect with readers is evident in her honest and lyrical style, which resonates deeply and evokes a range of emotions. The transition from the simplicity of drinking black coffee to the metaphorical "brewed from the grounds of the cemetery" in her poem about her mother's passing, for instance, strikes a chord with anyone who has experienced loss, prompting a reflection on the fleeting nature of life.
How to Monetize Despair is marked by its rich similes and vibrant descriptions, making it not just a collection of poems but an artistic experience that invites deep contemplation and ignites the imagination. Lines like "the season moves like the laughter of past children" encapsulate feelings of nostalgia and the inexorable passage of time. While How to Monetize Despair may particularly resonate with those who have experienced the loss of a loved one, I believe its scope extends far beyond. Mottolo explores a myriad of subjects, including religion, love, family, trauma, and even more abstract concepts like nihilism, the news, robots, aging, and the sea.
Despite the brevity of its poems, How to Monetize Despair serves as a catalyst for a more nuanced and discerning perspective on life. Mottolo paints the stark realities of loss and death in a way that is not only relatable but also prompts introspection. This book is likely to be a source of continuous inspiration, encouraging readers to embrace the fullness of life with an enriched understanding and appreciation.
In poems like "Obituary for a Small Parrot," Mottolo offers a glimpse into her personal life, recounting the poignant moment of bringing her parrot home in a cardboard box. She also delves into the mundanity and unexpected profundity of daily life, as seen in "Memoriam for the Grocery," where a simple act of selecting avocados in a grocery store becomes a moment of introspection. Her poem "Sonder" explores the multifaceted nature of the English language, highlighting our continuous, though often unsuccessful, attempts to make sense of the universe. Mottolo's ability to connect with readers is evident in her honest and lyrical style, which resonates deeply and evokes a range of emotions. The transition from the simplicity of drinking black coffee to the metaphorical "brewed from the grounds of the cemetery" in her poem about her mother's passing, for instance, strikes a chord with anyone who has experienced loss, prompting a reflection on the fleeting nature of life.
How to Monetize Despair is marked by its rich similes and vibrant descriptions, making it not just a collection of poems but an artistic experience that invites deep contemplation and ignites the imagination. Lines like "the season moves like the laughter of past children" encapsulate feelings of nostalgia and the inexorable passage of time. While How to Monetize Despair may particularly resonate with those who have experienced the loss of a loved one, I believe its scope extends far beyond. Mottolo explores a myriad of subjects, including religion, love, family, trauma, and even more abstract concepts like nihilism, the news, robots, aging, and the sea.
Despite the brevity of its poems, How to Monetize Despair serves as a catalyst for a more nuanced and discerning perspective on life. Mottolo paints the stark realities of loss and death in a way that is not only relatable but also prompts introspection. This book is likely to be a source of continuous inspiration, encouraging readers to embrace the fullness of life with an enriched understanding and appreciation.
August 2, 2023
Before I have even turned the opening page of How to Monetize Despair I somewhat know this is going to have me hooked. With an intriguing choice of title and dramatic cover imagery, Lisa Mottolo's poetry collection is one which marks itself as bold and unapologetic from the get go. Those of a sensitive disposition should step aside now.
In just under a hundred pages, this collection provides readers with an assortment of stanza-led poetry and monologue segments, divided into three segments but overall covering the key milestones of grief, from the initial shock trauma to forming new pathways in life. In one poem titled "We Only Speak Well of the Dead", Mottolo inserts feelings love and compassion expressed in the wording against a title backdrop of dry humour (in this case, the observation that so often death blesses one's legacy with a celebrated status which the deceased are unable to appreciate). It is a slightly twisted view of the world, but one which feels clever and, like much of Mottolo's poetry, one you need to read for yourself to truly appreciate.
The monologue excepts of writing are monolithic, taking up to a page with the author intentionally leaving the copy as one lump of solid text. It forces the reader to tackle the content in one go, or else face losing their place in the text altogether, however once you adopt the differing approach to reading you are greatly rewarded with beautiful imagery and ideas on the meaning of life that for better or worse will haunt you long after you have finished reading.
How to Monetize Despair makes for a strangely captivating read. It is hard to put into words how Mottolo does it, she just does. In truth the only way to fully understand this poetry collection is to read it for yourself, do that and then we can talk.
AEB Reviews
In just under a hundred pages, this collection provides readers with an assortment of stanza-led poetry and monologue segments, divided into three segments but overall covering the key milestones of grief, from the initial shock trauma to forming new pathways in life. In one poem titled "We Only Speak Well of the Dead", Mottolo inserts feelings love and compassion expressed in the wording against a title backdrop of dry humour (in this case, the observation that so often death blesses one's legacy with a celebrated status which the deceased are unable to appreciate). It is a slightly twisted view of the world, but one which feels clever and, like much of Mottolo's poetry, one you need to read for yourself to truly appreciate.
The monologue excepts of writing are monolithic, taking up to a page with the author intentionally leaving the copy as one lump of solid text. It forces the reader to tackle the content in one go, or else face losing their place in the text altogether, however once you adopt the differing approach to reading you are greatly rewarded with beautiful imagery and ideas on the meaning of life that for better or worse will haunt you long after you have finished reading.
How to Monetize Despair makes for a strangely captivating read. It is hard to put into words how Mottolo does it, she just does. In truth the only way to fully understand this poetry collection is to read it for yourself, do that and then we can talk.
AEB Reviews
February 1, 2024
I have a great fondness for poetry, well-constructed verse that speaks to the poet's sense of self and the world they inhabit. Ms. Mottolo mastery of verse and understanding of her emotions makes this book a must-read for any lover of the art.
I found her poems thought provoking and powerful, bringing up my own history and the emotions I had suppressed. Her subjects are varied but themed and bring a fresh spirit to the art.
I cannot recommend this book enough.
I found her poems thought provoking and powerful, bringing up my own history and the emotions I had suppressed. Her subjects are varied but themed and bring a fresh spirit to the art.
I cannot recommend this book enough.
March 5, 2024
Neurotic Caterpillars and Philosophical Cockroaches.
I love poetry books and this one was quiet different from the ones I have read previously, which gave it such a unique feel. so many emotions and deep rooted feelings I had were brought to the surface, but I don’t regret it. There is truly no way to describe the way these poems have made me feel, you’ll have to read it for yourself to experience the depths of Lisa Mottolo’s words.
This is a must read for anyone who loves art & poetry!
I love poetry books and this one was quiet different from the ones I have read previously, which gave it such a unique feel. so many emotions and deep rooted feelings I had were brought to the surface, but I don’t regret it. There is truly no way to describe the way these poems have made me feel, you’ll have to read it for yourself to experience the depths of Lisa Mottolo’s words.
This is a must read for anyone who loves art & poetry!
May 14, 2024
Looking for a thought provoking read? Then this poetry collection is certainly for you.
Not only did this cover grab hold of my attention with its uniqueness, but so did Lisa Mottolo’s writing. She is such an incredible author with how differently she looks at the world, whilst being to able to portray that in each poem. Each so powerful and full of emotion and experience.
There is a poem for everyone to relate to in here.
Not only did this cover grab hold of my attention with its uniqueness, but so did Lisa Mottolo’s writing. She is such an incredible author with how differently she looks at the world, whilst being to able to portray that in each poem. Each so powerful and full of emotion and experience.
There is a poem for everyone to relate to in here.
November 23, 2025
I see this book is beloved. Perhaps the problem is with me, and I will accept that. There are seeds of bliss in the soil that is this prose, but as I see it, they had yet to bloom by the time I reached the end. A strong and unapologetic debut, but just not my taste.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews