Diary

by Marisa Crawford

This collection is about obsessions and how we are always building them, surrendering to them, or evading them. What is really being wrestled with is love, its losses, despair, denial of that despair, learning to love one’s own body and self, and all the ways we trick ourselves into making it through the hours and days and shifts of this grinding blue world. Natalie Diaz, author of Postcolonial Love Poem A dazzling collection of poems investigating dark corners of the mundane, Diary is incredibly ordinary but that is its magic. A portrait of a time, a modern-day poetic interpretation into the everydayness of being female and living in NYC while zooming into a cosmology of intimacies with incredible preciseness and lyricism. Marisa Crawford’s poetics are packed with beauty and darkness while still popping with magnificent humor. A joy to read, Diary is sassy and pretty, cataclysmic and full of life.” Julián Delgado Lopera, author of Fiebre Tropical

Genres: Poetry

90 pages, Paperback

Published September 13, 2023

About the author

Marisa Crawford is the author of the poetry collections The Haunted House, Reversible, and, most recently, DIARY (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023). She is the editor of The Weird Sister Collection (Feminist Press, forthcoming 2024), and co-editor, with Megan Milks, of We Are The Baby-Sitters Club: Essays & Artwork from Grown-Up Readers. Marisa is co-host of the 90s rock podcast All Our Pretty Songs. She lives in New York.

Reviews

[Keight · Rating 5 out of 5]

from one “Diary”
Ask not why you weren’t in a band in high school
But why you don’t start a band right now.
If I surround myself with all the most positive people it
will be as though I started a band in high school metaphorically.
Sister / Resister / Cape Cod / Colonial
I’m obsessed with the past and
you’re obsessed with the present.

from another “Diary”
I hate this sweater but I’m too cold not
to wear it as a metaphor for my career.
My therapist says yes corporations take advantage
of human beings’ ambitious nature.
My insurance says they will cover
zero dollars for our visits.
What a thrill. I cut my finger while washing the blender
at the exact second that I think of you.

As the title of the book (and several poems) suggest, there is often a confessional feel to Marisa Crawford’s writing, rooted in a nostalgia of 90s adolescence. The rhythm is a bit fragmented, or maybe angular, a post-punk lyricism. The references to song lyrics and other poetry are plentiful, and it was interesting to check in with myself on what I caught and what I didn’t in the notes in the back.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hate this sweater but I’m too cold not
to wear it as a metaphor for my career
--“Diary”

One of my favorite poets! I love what Marisa does with the poetics of the everyday in this collection - the present teetering on a pile-up of pasts. These poems are richly layered, propulsive, feeling time as it moves in all directions.

The TA I had in college
who asked what poetry I liked to read.
I said Frank O’Hara, unconfidently.
And for some reason he laughed at me.
The part of Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Linda says,
“Stacey, he’s not a guy. He’s a little prick!
--“Diary”

[Kristen Felicetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a millenial of a certain age, Marisa Crawford's DIARY has your number. She perfectly captures how, especially for those of us who were teenage girls, we walk around with our heads rattling with internet speak, upspeak, the mall, 90s pop culture, 9/11, fast fashion, luxury brand names, corporate jobs and girlboss trash, fantasies. References from the past and present live together, singing karaoke together all at once.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chef’s kiss. Damn.