Mortal Trash: Poems

by Kim Addonizio

“Kim Addonizio’s voice lifts from the page, alive and biting―unleashing wit with a ruthless observation.”― San Francisco Book Review Passionate and irreverent, Mortal Trash transports the readers into a world of wit, lament, and desire. In a section called “Over the Bright and Darkened Lands,” canonical poems are torqued into new shapes. “Except Thou Ravish Me,” reimagines John Donne’s famous “Batter my heart, Three-person’d God” as told from the perspective of a victim of domestic violence. Like Pablo Neruda, Addonizio hears “a swarm of objects that call without being answered”: hospital crash carts, lawn gnomes, Evian bottles, wind-up Christmas creches, edible panties, cracked mirrors. Whether comic, elegiac, or ironic, the poems in Mortal Trash remind us of the beauty and absurdity of our time on earth. From “Scrapbook”:

We believe in the one-ton rose
and the displaced toilet equally. Our blues

assume you understand
not much, and try to be alive, just as we do,

and that it may be helpful to hold the hand
of someone as lost as you.

Genres: Poetry, Poetry Plays

112 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 2016

About the author

Author of several poetry collections including Tell Me, a National Book Award Finalist. My Black Angel is a book of blues poems with woodcuts by Charles D. Jones, from SFA Press. The Palace of Illusions is a story collection from Counterpoint/Soft Skull. A New & Selected, Wild Nights, is out in the UK from Bloodaxe Books.

2016 publications: Mortal Trash, new poems, from W.W. Norton, awarded the Paterson Poetry Prize. A memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life, from Penguin.

Two instructional books on writing poetry: The Poet's Companion (with Dorianne Laux), and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within.

First novel, Little Beauties, was published by Simon & Schuster and chosen as "Best Book of the Month" by Book of the Month Club. My Dreams Out in the Street, second novel, released by Simon & Schuster in 2007.

A new word/music CD, "My Black Angel, "is a collaboration with several musicians and contains all the poems in the book of that name. That and an earlier word/music CD with poet Susan Browne, "Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing," available from cdbaby.com. There's an earlier book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure (FC2); and the anthology Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos,, co-edited with Cheryl Dumesnil.

I teach poetry workshops at conferences and online through my web site. I also play blues harmonica, and I'm learning jazz flute. Music is a good place to focus when I'm in a writing slump.

Reviews

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe I've read too much Kim Addonizio in too short a span of time, but I was really impatient with a lot of this. It seemed both callow and full of depressing stuff about aging, and I was left thinking uncharitable thoughts about what happens when the girl who's always dancing on the bar is eventually forced, by sheer dint of the decades passing, to grow up. The "sonnets" section felt gimmicky to me, and her attempts to mimic (pay homage to?) e.e. cummings were kind of painful. It wasn't until the last section, "Thousands of Times Throughout the Day," that I really started to appreciate Mortal Trash. That section dealt mostly with her grief at the loss of her mother and brother, and reminded me the most of her voice from her previous collections, so I felt guilty for liking it more than the rest of this book (I don't want her to grow or experiment in her work! I only want her to be sad about the things that I find acceptable to be sad about!). Not the most satisfying reading experience. I think the honeymoon is over between Kim Addonizo and me, but our relationship definitely isn't, and I'm looking forward to seeing where she takes us from here.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Batter my heart.
Burn me with a cigarette.
Show me your dick.
I am fuck-sick.
Knock, knock.
Please break my ribs.
A black eye would be nice.
Your dinner is ready.
The meat is burned.
You drunken pig.
You weak little shit.
That should do it.

[Carrie Callaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

first found this book at the last bookstore in la with some friends back in 2016. read the first handful of poems and fell in LOVE. for some unknown and mystifying reason i didn’t buy the book then, but could not get it out of my head. that said, i read more addonizio where i could find her online, but i never just ordered this book, because for some reason i was determined to stumble across it in a bookstore again. well after over 6 years, it finally happened!!! i was at mcnally jackson’s (for the first time) with miles. i told him under no circumstances was i to buy a book. but then, there she was. on the shelf. the one book that would make me break my own rule. and reader, it was worth breaking that rule. all the poems i read back in 2016 (and have sought out many times for school, especially seasonal affective disorder and manners) still hit as hard, but there are so many more poems that i hadn’t read yet that are so amazing. i know this is a collection i will come back to again and again. i always recommend it to both poetry lovers and newbies alike because addonizio writes with such immediate and accessible imagery that anyone can take something from her work—but she does so without sacrificing quality.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

The movement of these poems is quite alive. Word choice is still Addonizio's strength. This time, I just don't feel like anything is being said. Or, nothing is being said to me. I feel blank after each poem. Left blinking and grasping for more than the humor and the dance.

[Ju$tin · Rating 4 out of 5]

not quite 5 star for me but some really cool/clever lines in this book much better than a majority of the poetry i've read not pretentious feeling at all which is refreshing

[Peycho Kanev · Rating 3 out of 5]

OVER THE BRIGHT AND
DARKENED LANDS

I sit in one of the dives.
I feel kind of dizzy.
October 29, 2009.
In Peshawar, the shoppers drop.
Explosives in a car
explode kids
and their mothers
in Meena Bazaar.
The bottles look pretty, lit up
like a glass pyre.
There’s an olive in my higher power.
The jukebox is haunted.
I brandish my glass.
Smoke stinks in my hair.
We must fuck one another.

BUT HAVE NOT LOVE

If I lick men, and angels,
they will take me to dinner.
The bells bang all winter.
Angels are picky eaters.
They don’t like animals.
Nothing slaughtered
or quartered.
Nothing can be ordered.
Men are a different story;
they chew like cows.
They are easy to kill
because they’re blind.
I can see the future
in my burned mirror.
Blacker, and nearer.

INTERNET DATING

I’m tired of kissing nematodes,
splitting the check with scorpions,
listening to the spiritual autobiographies of slugs
over an infinitely repeated series
of banal gestural codes.
I’m thinking of dating trees next.
We could just stand around all night together.
We could stand each other.
I’d murmur, they’d rustle, the wind
would, like, do its wind thing,
without speaking. I hate speech.
Shut up shut up shut up I thought
as he flicked his tongue at the Peruvian tapas,
but the spell didn’t work.
Get out of my inbox. I feel violated.
Not in a good way.
There’s no one I want to inhale into my alveoli
like I did with you. There, I just made you
into a cigarette. If only
I could press your burning head
into the arrow wound, and twist you, slowly,
to cauterize it. Instead
I want another you, and then another.
You, in the morning after coffee.
Postprandial you. You, especially when I’m drinking.
But back to dating: I don’t think I can.
If I read your profile online, I’d never write you.
But I miss all the sides of your face.
I miss the trees of your eyes.
I miss never licking the scar on your hand.
Last night I dreamed you came over
and stayed. If only I could buy
a little property in that dream
and not wake up sick
and freezing, endlessly hitting the return key.

[Chris Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

Accursed you will feel, it will grow and at last you will know that Kim Addonizio has followed time worn form in her drive towards mediocrity, the tell tale signs are everywhere; the great, thick hedgerows of verbiage quite ring the reader, your mind and they swallow whole pages and pages, you will be soaked by a thunderstorm of adjectives that cloyingly leach through your unwary mind and on you go through the muck where incidental, inanimate objects are endlessly presented weighed down and tritely re-imagined by the author.

Poetry has woe, these many years, been buried. The poet has not. It would take you six lifetimes to decipher the preceding two sentences.

Chris Roberts, God

[Ujjvala (Vaiju) Bagal - Rahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the book was uneven. Just my preferences, but I find disappointed sex poems boring now. Also, I don't usually enjoy abstract poetry. On the other hand, there were a number of powerful pieces here: Idioms for Rain, Party, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Reel, Name That Means Holy in Greek, for instance.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bummer, I usually like her. Hard to get behind "Now there were two of you, / or maybe one, mashed back together / like sandwich halves, / oozing mayonnaise."

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

One stood among the violets
listening to a bird. One went to the toilet
and was struck by the moon. One felt hopeless
until a trumpet crash, and then lo,
he became a diamond. I have a shovel.
Can I turn it into a poem? On my stove
I'm boiling some milk thistle.
I hope it will turn into a winged thesis
before you stop reading. Look, I'm topless!
Listen: approaching hooves!
One drowned in a swimming pool.
One removed his shoes
and yearned off a bridge. One lives
with Alzheimer's in a state facility, spittle
in his white beard. It
turns out words are no help.
But here I am with my shovel
digging like a fool
beside the spilth and splosh
of the ungirdled sea. I can't stop.
The horses are coming, the thieves.
I still haven't found lasting love.
I still want to hear viols
in the little beach hotel
that's torn down and gone.
I want to see again the fish
schooling and glittering like a veil
where the waves shove
against the breakwater. Gone
is the girl in her white slip
testing the chill with one bare foot.
It's too cold, but she goes in, so
carefully, oh.

—"Lives of the Poets," Kim Addonizio

[Anna Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first collection I’ve read by Addonozio and it was dynamic and full of creative choices, but I’m not sure I’m in her target audience, as I read through several sections that left me feeling as if I didn’t “get” it. The moments that connected with me really clicked, though:

“…But what difference
your age; everyone’s here until
they’re not, gone but in some weird
way still hovering in the air,
in a cracked mirror, in the eyes
of those grandparents and great-aunts.
Enter from stage left the red
shock of wings, a disturbance in the trees
easily mistaken for wind.”

from What to Save from the Fire

[boocia]

big big fan of this one. i think addonizio displays a great sense of connotation and association. over and over i felt sort of corralled indirectly into a very specific response by a series of images and ideas Around this response. impressive work! really delicious turns of phrase also (“overbuttered dark”
really got me). also several moments where i literally laughed with delight at the clevernesses.

[Ron Mohring · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the textures in her poems. I love that they still surprise me.

[Valentina Tsoneva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mortal Trash by Kim Adonizio
A mixture of sensitiveness, deep conclusions, and raw language

“Mortal Trash” is a poetry collection of about 70 poems by Kim Adonizio. It is hugely praised by the critics and that made me buy it. Undeniably, Kim Adonizio has sharp observation skills, compares the incomparable, and finds imagery where there isn’t or nobody else noticed it before (like the flushing of the toilet in “The Givens”). Some of her metaphors are mundane, some are personal, some are poetic, some are intimate and some are cynical. In addition to the deep pondering of the speaker, there is a lot of drinking and cursing. Sometimes it fits, sometimes it doesn’t. It is a mixture of sensitiveness, deep and touchy conclusions, and raw language. I like the poems in the beginning (have some punch lines) and the ones at the end (personal, sad, and intimate). The sonnets didn’t sound strong and imaginative. Overall, there are some good ones, but not as outstanding as it was reviewed.

[zar · Rating 2 out of 5]

"i am most
myself when flashing rapidly
my iridescent wings, drinking
the juice of fallen fruit."

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

So ok here's the thing. The poems that I understood I loved. But I didn't understand much. I think I'm going to revisit this book when I'm older and a more experienced reader and writer.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Address older people as sir or ma'am
unless they drift slowly into your lane
as you aim for the exit ramp.

-Manners (lines 1-3)

Intrigue and a quick flip of the page brought me to that poem, and I thought: yeah. I'm going to get this one. And then I continued to read:

Don't call anyone dickhead, fuckface, or ass-hat;
these terms are reserved for ex-boyfriends
or anyone you once let get past second base
and later wished would be sucked into a sinkhole.

-Manners (lines 4-7)

And then, of course, my thinking shifted to: Daaaammmnnn, lol... I'm really going to get this one. Like right now.

So here we are. And it makes sense that I liked it, so. Addonizio reminds me of Billy Collins - a similar wit and whim. A similar style of observing the world and then grouping and categorizing - as if they're pulling from the same poetic taxonomy repository - one that all the rest of us are unfamiliar with.

Whoever came up with the acronym must have been happy
to think of everyone in winter walking around
saying "I have SAD" instead of "This time of year,
when the light leaves early and intimations of colder
hours settle over the houses like the great oppressive
oily scutes of a dragon's belly, I feel, I don't know,
a sense of ennui...

-Seasonal Affective Disorder (1-7a)

This styling of poetry is accessible by its nature. Down to earth and unassuming. The opposite of the presumptuous and pretentious reputation the form has earned. It's a strength of this styling. Addonizio is more abrasive than many others who write this way. Brash. Vulgar. Suffering-no-fools in a very "fuck you" way. That can be taken as a criticism or strength, I suppose.

It's rare when I finish a book of poetry and immediately look for another book by the author, but that's what I did - especially when I see so many reviews that say they prefer her earlier work. Perhaps they do - but perhaps this is the band dropping another great album - the fans unaware of it's greatness yet, simply because they've listened to the previous drops on repeat for the past 14 years.

[Sarah Lain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kim Addonizio is now one of my favorite poets. She writes Mortal Trash with power, creativity, honesty, and absolutely no shame or fear. That combination is glorified in the poetry arena, but few authors actually have the guts for such vulnerability.

This collection (to be vulnerable myself) came to me at a time in my life where I am about done with this so-called love that, in Hollywood films, ends in kissing, but in the real world, ends more like this:

I hate hearts please don’t have one
I wish you wouldn’t call me I’m not waiting

(from Sonnet “57”)

Yes, that’s more like it.

Addonizio could teach an entire semester course load in poetic voice, which in this collection, has a certain kill switch tone to it:

You drunken pig.
You weak little shit.
That should do it.

(from “Except Thou Ravish Me”)

Here we are in America 2017 with the Trumps and Weinsteins (and-and-and-dot-dot-dot) all around us. Dealing with the sexual lostness is beyond exhausting to the point of just quitting the whole idea altogether. Mortal Trash conveys that sense of doneness with the image, tone, and invention of brilliant poetry:

You know what I miss? I miss lying next to you
feeling like a lifeboat roped to an ocean liner.

(from “Candy Heart Valentine”)

And I thought to myself: I’ve felt that. These poems accomplish what I think most sincere poets hope to achieve: to make the emotion new in image, and in doing so, to remind each other that we are not alone in hardening landscapes. And so Kim, if you read this, I want to say: Bravo. Thank you. I read this book on a weekend alone in the middle of a bunch of canyons, and I really needed it. Thanks.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Ask questions / of others in order to show your interest. / How do you like my poem so far? / Do you think I’m pretty?” Mortal Trash, the 2016 collection from Kim Addonizio, is amongst the most captivating poetry books I’ve read, an instant favourite and classic. What Addonizio accomplishes — with her acerbic wit, her glittering language and her formal playfulness — is a constantly jolting work, warning you: “Step out carefully. Take an ax.” There’s so much to love, including her short sequence of sonnets, proclaiming “Love is not love / stain remover will take that out.” Her irreverence is thrilling; I was constantly reminded of what I love in Hera Lindsay Bird’s work while reading: “If I could kill myself and go back there I would. / Then again, murmurs the Ghost / of Christmas Future, your hair / looks so much better now.” So many lines like this, which stick out as instantly memorable, relatable, and true — that miraculous melding of the personal + universal. “Which // is more poetic: legless child, drowning polar bear, heartless lover?” Then moments of real heart, in which love’s attendant pains gain new clarity simply by Addonizio’s will; “When I last checked my heart / it was plush and burnt straw.” “You were someone to me once, but now I’ve razored / through most of the frames.” I am newly discipled to Kim Addonizio.

[spike シ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mortal Trash by Kim Addonizio is like sipping red wine that’s just a little too dry, nibbling on sharp cheese, and belting out half-forgotten songs at a smoky karaoke bar. The poems hit with the tang of something aged and slightly bitter, full of grit and a sly, knowing humor. They come at you raw, like a crooner who’s a little off-key but still owns the room, finding grace notes in all the wrong places.

It’s indulgent, a little messy, but strangely beautiful—like you’re savoring a moment you didn’t quite plan for. Each verse lingers on your tongue, sharp and smooth, and leaves you with a quiet warmth that fades into something bittersweet. Addonizio’s words are for those late-night hours when the world spins a little slower, and you find yourself lost in the ache of a melody you can’t help but sing along to.

[Nadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 starts -- I wanted to love this so bad! A few of my absolute FAVORITE poems of all time are by Kim Addonizio ("Onset" may be my favorite poem EVER, and "New Year's Day" and "First Poem for You" are spectacular). However, this collection was really lacking, in my opinion. I truly liked only two of the poems: "Sleep Stage" and "Dream the Night My Brother Dies." The other poems that I almost liked (such as "Stray Sparks," "Lives of the Poets," "Wishbone," "116," "139," and "154") all seemed unfinished, unpolished, and rushed, like they were drafts that weren't given enough time and editing to be truly great poems. I'm definitely disappointed, but this collection doesn't take away from my love for those first three poems I mentioned!

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mortal Trash is divided into 4 sections of poems - I thought section 1 (Wishbone) was great, but wasn't a huge fan of the other sections. That being said, there are a few poems in this book that I feel make the whole thing worth it - "Stray Sparks", "Divine", "Party", "Out in the Tranquil Bay", and "116". I'm a big fan of the way Addonizio mashes/sews words and concepts and idioms in unexpected combinations, but since I am an impatient poetry reader, after a while I started to feel a little tired at not really knowing what was going on half the time. Would recommend for Midnight on the Roof Stayed Home From the Party.

[Hunter James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here Be Dragons

I’m not done with the compass
& I’m still puzzling over the chart
All those squiggles and numbers
Sea monsters prowling the depths
Devouring ships serpent tucked whale
Horse fish dinner rhinoceros these
Were my lovers these what dragged
Me down what I wanted to be taken
To the underwater city sirens
Goatfish sphinxes whores I drank
In the taverns with pirate howler
Monkeys my sea captain ancestors my
Sozzled staggering fathers & returned
But not to any harbor only the curved
Surface I sailed on.

[Izabella Britten · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection. It told a story that I think fit into its time, often times when one thinks of poetry they think of really old writers and hard to understand passages but these poems were so relatable and beautiful and modern. I loved it when they would tie into one another and I would recognize themes and ideas from one poem into the next, the way they just weave together seamlessly is pretty cool.
Some of my favorites were:
Lives of the poets
Plastic
Ways to go
Introduction to poetry
Here be dragons
What to save from the fire

[Michelle Tooker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim is one of my favorite poets, and I've been fortunate enough to participate in one of her workshops. This collection is full of thought-provoking, well-crafted poems. Some favorites include "Name That Means Holy in Greek," "What to Save from the Fire," "Sleep Stage" and "Candy Heart Valentine". The sonnet section didn't resonate with me as well as some of the other pieces. I like some of her other collections better, but this is still worth a read.

[Estela-Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this a few years back and never really got to it until today as I was cleaning my bookshelf. I bought it because I buy any poetry collection by this author. I started doing this post-college, after my poetry teacher told me she could hear the sounds of this author in my own work. This set was witty and funny, and my favorites include: Party, Internet Dating, Here Be Dragons, 57, and Eulogy.

[andreea. · Rating 3 out of 5]

SCRAPBOOK

This is me, depressed out of my mind,
frailing the banjo, spilling red wine

on the white
king-sized

luckily-hotel’s-and-not-my-
goose down comforter, this is me


walking and waxing nostalgic through the girlish shadows
of tall palm trees, the déjà vus

flying through the scene
suddenly, like those three

unnameable and therefore beautiful white birds.
This is me as a slowly-tearing-itself-apart cloud

and marveling
at a fire palely and flamily.

[Edward Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seriously gritty poetry the search for love in all the wrong places. Prowling the underbelly of the city encountering drugs, drink, lust deceit, despair and ruin... all with a note of hope.

Borrowed this from the University Library, may have to track a copy of this down for my personal library to have around to pick up when the moment strikes.

[Kelly P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book of poetry. I laughed, I was amazed, I agreed, I cried. I kept wondering, how have I not found the work of Kim Addonizio before? She is a prize winning poet for a reason. I read it out loud, sitting on my dog’s bed, while my dogs snored quietly beside me, likely having LSD-like dreams. They can thank me later.

[Laurel Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Addonizio balances the universal ad the personal while exploring love, lust, and mortality. She works carefully within the parameters of her chosen reworking of sonnets to meet readers of today. Some of these poems really grabbed me, while others kind of felt like the same meditation without telling me anything new. But that may just be a personal preference.