Dear Leader

by Damian Rogers

I summon the ghost of the Chevrolet dealership, the one
who drank Rothschild wine and cursed the federal reserve.

Is he revisiting the vines of Vietnam, or caressing his cache
of semi­-automatics, the collection he kept in case of coup? 

In her second book, Damian Rogers examines the seductive loops of paranoia and longing, disordered thinking and the pursuit of power. These poems work to repair the scrambled narratives of a non­consensual reality through collage, stitching together forms ranging from the villanelle to experiments with the open field.

Dear Leader vibrates with a voracious intensity as it illuminates the blackest corners of a dream world in which women compete for the attentions of their gods and witches eat their lovers to survive, where even a trip to the post office carries the risk of descent.

Praise for Paper Radio:

‘Paper Radio jumped out at me and I can’t say why, but that’s what you want poetry to do, and I never want to say why. Because it’s real and talking to me. Because it’s bloody and horrifying beauty. It’s the Clash and Buckminster Fuller, Auden and Bowie.’

— Bob Holman

Originally from the Detroit area, Damian Rogers now lives in Toronto where she works as the poetry editor of House of Anansi Press and as the creative director of Poetry in Voice. Her first book, Paper Radio, was nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

88 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2015

About the author

Damian Rogers was born and raised in suburban Detroit and now lives in Toronto. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a graduate degree from the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College. She is the author of Dear Leader (Coach House Books, 2015) and Paper Radio (ECW Press, 2009). She is the poetry editor at House of Anansi Press, the creative director of Poetry in Voice/Les voix de la poésie, the poetry editor at The Walrus and co-host with Jason Collett of the music and literary performance series the Basement Revue.

Reviews

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

These carefully crafted poems hint at a hidden disorder and experiment with forms to express this.
Many of them remained obscure after several readings, but curiously satisfying nevertheless for their rhythm and energy.

Heres another poet to look out for.

[Harry Junior · Rating 4 out of 5]

A varied, complicated book mixed with myth, seeming algorithm, and painful experiences. Some of the poems felt inaccessible, and I think that's a good thing. Others hit the heart square and left me feeling I was bearing witness to an intimacy. Glad to have read it.

[crista · Rating 4 out of 5]

It takes practice
to see myself
without a mirror.

[dimwig · Rating 3 out of 5]

not being a poet i only have boring words to describe poetry. this one here at times attains an abstract sensuality, a psychedelic sort of feeling that ideas & images are tangible tho out of reach; other times more accessible & playful, as in the villanelles & poem for love (i like forever changes!!!); other times dark & personal but even here there's more going on than initially apparent; other times satirical, conversational, funny. for being, to my eyes, relatively conventional poetry for the times, which usually leaves me a little cold, i am compelled: there's a strong voice here, the sense of a vision, a world a little askew. ambition & the talent to match. & what's the ambition? it's all in the title: one might mention gramsci's diagnosis of modernity.

[Clark Knowles · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My head shall not be taken from me, my head shall not be taken." An intense, roiling book about creative reclamation, change, and perseverance.