Your Glass Head against the Brick Parade of Now Whats

by Sam Pink

The much-anticipated poetry chapbook by Sam Pink, author of the cult favorites Person and I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It, who the Los Angeles Review of Books called, “Simply one of the best, darkest, funniest, wildest, and [most] touching writers we’ve got.”

Genres: Poetry, The United States Of America

70 pages, ebook

First published March 18, 2016

About the author

Sam Pink is the author of The No Hellos Diet, Hurt Others, I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It, Frowns Need Friends Too, and the cult hit Person. His writing has been published widely in print and on the internet, and also in other languages. He lives in Chicago, where he plays in the band Depressed Woman.

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real words
for anyone who bears
the endless tide
or the repetitive ripple
of a dull stream
or floats
in a stagnant
puddle of now what
and wonders if their reflection
is accurate.
This is for you: a
"Silent broadcast of I am with you in the shit—while in bed at night—to anyone else out there."

[Ju$tin · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10

Uhhhhhhhh this was a fkn great book of poetry, man. Started a mite slow and there were some weak spots but there were too many brilliant lines to not 5 star. free to buy on kindle unlimited and only 2.99 on kindle right now...i'm high...i mean i highly recommend it.

[Brian Alan Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

We’re talkin’: 666 beasts. 666 dead bodies. 666 different forms of sad. 666 new problems. 2 broken lawnmowers in a dumpster. 1 smashed dollhouse in an alley, surrounded by drug needles. 1 corpse covered by 3 gigantic bees. 1 dead bull. 1 balloon with a dead bird taped to it. 1 burnt corpse spray-painted gold. A mouth filled with 10 guns. 1 quick painless death. 1 long painless death. 1 medium-sized extremely painful and terrifying death. No breasts. Head-butt fu. Firing squad fu. Beaten to death by a baseball bat fu. Heads roll. Thumbs down to you and everything else all the fucking time. “Your body on an IV of renewed negativity.” Ten swords through a skull. Head though walls. Head through glass. Head through coffins. Smiling like a dead rat poked with a stick. Ghost bayonets. Squirt gun filled with blood fu. Pulling out your teeth on the subway fu. Knives through your heart fu. Picking up flowers with broken hands. Staring at dead bugs stacked on a windowsill. A monster with a head made of a 100 toothless mouths, another with a head full of knives. Someone stabs themselves in the throat while fucking. Gratuitous bullet holes in a coffin fu. Head on fire. Come-stained sweatpants. Someone is duct-taped and tossed alive into Lake Michigan on a cold winter night. National Book Award nomination for the depressed person who says, “This is the best birthday ever,” and another for the person who grabs a door for someone and says, “Here let me get that for you” then puts their own head between the door and slams it a bunch. 98 on the vomit meter. A shut-in classic. 4 stars. Joe Bob says check it out!

[Andrew Novak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Your Glass Head Against The Brick Parade of Now Whats is perhaps something of a high-water mark for Pink’s poetry. It’s 70 pages long, and every single word is worth your time.

I promise.

Sam Pink describes Your Glass Head as a single “beautiful nice poem,” which seems fitting enough. But I’d add that it’s also a catalog of depressing aphorisms, grim metaphors for modern living, and bleak, fragmentary observations—all completely relevant to real people in today’s world. It’ll strike a chord for sure. No narrative frills. Just raw, unmitigated negativity, depression, and self-loathing. It's a perfect distillation of Sam Pink’s oeuvre, calcified and sharpened to a glistening point for slow insertion into one of the more membranous parts of your body.

Yes, Your Glass Head is a masterwork of depression and abject alienation.

It is epic.

It is Sam Pink's "Howl."

[Alexandre Alphonse · Rating 5 out of 5]

For you, all the bricks from heaven such that their shadow freezes you long before you're crushed.

A masterpiece.

Todos los libros de proesía españistaní de los últimos decenios juntos (todos esos profesaurios y chicas sesis ganando concursos de poesía amañados con sus insultos a la inteligencia and whatnot) no valen una sola frase de este.

Nowadays, I think that few books have such a great content matching their gorgeous cover.
This is the kind of book that makes you feel like personally thanking the author for it.
Thank you Sam, even if that's not your real name.
For you, I would hunt myself for years.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Right up there with Person in my toppermost listings of Sam Pink favoriteness.

[Jes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great stream of WTF mind stuffs from Sam Pink. I love it.

[Leah Bayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam Pink is a national treasure.

[Scott Cumming · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was perhaps one of the most intense reading experiences I've ever had. At once corporeal and all too real, I found myself nodding along with a lot of lines while melting down inside as I felt myself boiling away to nothing under the harsh truths within the poem.

House of Vlad has quickly become a go-to publisher for me and this is another hit o terms of quality and in terms of how hard the reality of the prose comes at you. I bow before what they are doing, but hope they don't all crash into me like this one did.

[Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

The repetition is effective. Anxiety and rumination sound like this. It is as if the author held a recording device to the inner voice of doom. Not a fancy smartphone app but an old tape recorder. A tape recorder that hitches, rewinds, and replays the last five seconds. The last five seconds that you wish would stop replaying but you don't have a choice. You don't have a choice because this is your life. This is how badass you wish your life sounded. On your worst days. This feels like being heard.

[Lindsey.parks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every line is gold.

[Albin Hasani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam Pink's darkest work yet is also his most fulfilling. A must-read for every sensible human being.

[David Catney · Rating 5 out of 5]

fucking mind blowing.
wear a helmet.

[KKUURRTT · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a challenging poem but it has more moments that make my think than Avengers: infinity war. It's certainly and epic poem and should be considered the beowulf of the depressed millennial sect.

[J.A.]

Another mindbender from Sam Pink, choked with poetic weapons.

[Cavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“YOUR GLASS HEAD AGAINST THE BRICK PARADE OF NOW WHATS” published through House of Vlad is a series of vaguely interrelated poems that often call back to previous lines. This book displays Pink’s simultaneously aggressive and soft style in a concentrated way given it’s format; several segments of predominantly one or two lines divided throughout the piece with some give and take of sentence length and amount here and there. There is such strong imagery and semblance of self that the entire piece of work puts you into a headspace identical to that of the speaker. It’s incredibly easy to find yourself stuck between the words as Pink reveals some of our darkest desires and fears. The amazing thing about this collection is that every line is so meticulously crafted that it can stand alone. Even if several lines are related, you can chop it up and read one and within that single line there is a grand sentiment that you can relate to.

[Stacie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.75 stars

This is my second Sam Pink title, the first one being Person, and I'll have to admit he's one of the most unique voices I've read from in recent memory. I was able to find this piece as part of a spoken word album, so I ended up listening to the entire thing in one sitting. It only took about 20 minutes to finish, but it was powerful. Felt like a love letter to the existential, anxiety-ridden parts of my brain.

My only issue was the music that accompanied the poetry, I felt like it was more of a distraction from the words then an addition to the experience. Other than that though, the words themselves resonated deeply with me. I'm definitely planning on exploring more of Pink's work.

[AutomaticSlim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the newer edition with bonus material.
glad for that
bonus material maybe better than the long poem
which was good
little confusing at times
but excellent when you get in the swing of it
loved the refined or whatever poems at the end
like, hey, I've always been good at accepting shit
but I've learned I was accepting the wrong things
kinda stuff

I've read all the pinks now except the play
which is on my shelf, saved
read most of them more than once
because, dude is cool as shit

[Damion Postlewaight · Rating 3 out of 5]

My mind is divided bewteen "Breaking into a random house and making a lot of
sandwiches and leaving them on a plate for whoever
lives there to find." and "Painful periods of no self-worth." always.

Myabe I need a shrink. Maybe Sam Pink is the shrink we never remember calling.

Anyway at least he has coffee and biskits.

[Codycvlp · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is for the new edition (2025)

you know when you’re out on your own with only your thoughts and you have conversations with yourself no matter how simple, ironic or bizarre they can be, this is that.

[Robert Mynatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greatest living writers

Everything he's ever written is gold, like the price of stonks. But maybe more volatile, yet comforting at the same time.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

A prayer ritual for life's inherent shittiness. Garbage worship mixed with the strangled sound of drowning in garbage.

An account of walking through the entirety of hell and coming out invincible but unable to care about anything.

The MacArthur Genius Foundation should give the money to Sam Pink so he can get shirts, Ben Lerner already has many shirts in good condition.

Sam Pink is the only author I really like these days and who writes to the type of piece of shit I am.

[Benji Geyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In this ambitious, life-affirming masterpiece of American fiction Pink navigates the complexities of religion, gender and commerce in a breathtakingly elegant manner, cementing his status as the literary voice of a generation." –The New Yorker

[Bk · Rating 5 out of 5]

fuck the cubs. cheese or cheese product. I sprint and barely make it to the elevator. You hold open the doors, they bounce off your arm. You ask what floor. I can't answer because I can't stop huffing. KFC nashville hot chicken.

[Gublichandji Buginath · Rating 5 out of 5]

sam pink is home to me.