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Standard Loneliness Package
A BOOK MADE TO HAUNT ME
"Seidlinger has cut all the nonsense away and looks at the core of each relationship. You can feel the heart in this collection and can't help but feel moved to look at our own past of broken connections."
—The Big Smoke
"Standard Loneliness Package makes it easy to see that time is the great healer, and that it also sometimes acts as a microscope that allows us to study every small mistake we made."
—PANK
"Michael J Seidlinger’s collection of epistolary poems, Standard Loneliness Package, is a beast! Or rather, a bestiary. Each poem’s composed to someone lost to the poet, and as this book accrues, we discover all that the direct address in a poem can do. This collection reconciles with a past that is not past, still alive inside the writer and shows how poetry can be a means of assembling our ghosts, of reaching across the void into the unknown, regardless of what you’ll find reaching back.”
—sam sax, author of Madness
"I loved how Michael J Seidlinger’s Standard Loneliness Package navigates the ways in which communication and companionship fail us and leave us longing for more. The speaker of these poems earnestly traces the silhouettes of different people from their life, wondering what lingers after the person is gone. This book is tender and sad, but not without hope—no matter who this speaker encounters, there’s always something left behind to document, collect, and value."
—Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I’m Someone Else
"Michael J Seidlinger’s Standard Loneliness Package begins with the lines 'The first poem / The first apology / Of a book made / To haunt me.' The book will haunt you too. Each piece explores, without reserve, his earliest personal relationships and how they shape him. This is a collection for anyone who hasn’t been their best self, for anyone hoping to make sense of their own loneliness, for anyone struggling to accept the mistakes and misgivings about their past. Seidlinger explores the dark parts of himself and the people around him with the keen eye and a generous heart."
—Christine Stroud, author of Sister Suite
"Seidlinger has cut all the nonsense away and looks at the core of each relationship. You can feel the heart in this collection and can't help but feel moved to look at our own past of broken connections."
—The Big Smoke
"Standard Loneliness Package makes it easy to see that time is the great healer, and that it also sometimes acts as a microscope that allows us to study every small mistake we made."
—PANK
"Michael J Seidlinger’s collection of epistolary poems, Standard Loneliness Package, is a beast! Or rather, a bestiary. Each poem’s composed to someone lost to the poet, and as this book accrues, we discover all that the direct address in a poem can do. This collection reconciles with a past that is not past, still alive inside the writer and shows how poetry can be a means of assembling our ghosts, of reaching across the void into the unknown, regardless of what you’ll find reaching back.”
—sam sax, author of Madness
"I loved how Michael J Seidlinger’s Standard Loneliness Package navigates the ways in which communication and companionship fail us and leave us longing for more. The speaker of these poems earnestly traces the silhouettes of different people from their life, wondering what lingers after the person is gone. This book is tender and sad, but not without hope—no matter who this speaker encounters, there’s always something left behind to document, collect, and value."
—Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I’m Someone Else
"Michael J Seidlinger’s Standard Loneliness Package begins with the lines 'The first poem / The first apology / Of a book made / To haunt me.' The book will haunt you too. Each piece explores, without reserve, his earliest personal relationships and how they shape him. This is a collection for anyone who hasn’t been their best self, for anyone hoping to make sense of their own loneliness, for anyone struggling to accept the mistakes and misgivings about their past. Seidlinger explores the dark parts of himself and the people around him with the keen eye and a generous heart."
—Christine Stroud, author of Sister Suite
- GenresPoetry
126 pages, Paperback
Published February 14, 2018
2 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
About the author
Michael J. Seidlinger
32 books456 followersMICHAEL J. SEIDLINGER is the Filipino American author of The Body Harvest, Anybody Home?, and other books. He has written for, among others, Wired, Buzzfeed, Thrillist, Goodreads, The Observer, Polygon, The Believer, and Publishers Weekly. He teaches at Portland State University and has led workshops at Catapult, Kettle Pond Writer's Conference, and Sarah Lawrence. You can find him at michaeljseidlinger.com.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 28, 2018
Picked this up because the cover is bomb and I feel guilty for not reading enough poetry. Also my college buddy is over there at Broken River--hey J.! Congratulations to all involved on this project. Standard Loneliness Package made me believe in poetry again.
The book works so well not because any one poem is a knockout, although there are many standouts, but because of the perfect cohesion. It reads almost like a novel, where you link each relationship to an overarching storyline. I love the gritty truth of it all. Sometimes the poet comes across as a dick and God bless him for it. In this social media world full of photo filters and self-propaganda, let us finally read about truth. And these issues, too, are major themes of the book. Tinder comes up, as well as the agony of unanswered texts. It's modern without trying to be. It isn't trying to be anything. It just is. And it rocks.
The book works so well not because any one poem is a knockout, although there are many standouts, but because of the perfect cohesion. It reads almost like a novel, where you link each relationship to an overarching storyline. I love the gritty truth of it all. Sometimes the poet comes across as a dick and God bless him for it. In this social media world full of photo filters and self-propaganda, let us finally read about truth. And these issues, too, are major themes of the book. Tinder comes up, as well as the agony of unanswered texts. It's modern without trying to be. It isn't trying to be anything. It just is. And it rocks.
March 13, 2018
Someday, were the words of Neil Young, promising to write a letter to the good friends he has known. This idea has always been appealing. Unfortunately, someday never came for me. I have been away too long... or have I? Michael Seidlinger has done something similar with this collection of poems, but in a more poignant way. He deems Standard Loneliness Package “A book made to haunt me,” an apt description for what may be a Sweet and Low look-alike on the surface but often cuts deep. Together, these poems give a transparent and personal picture of someone who has been enigmatic to me until now.
As people of today our connections, often so temporary in nature, still do manage to leave a footprint. Themes of regret, loss, loneliness, and the desire to escape all ring strongly throughout. A unique and memorable read.
As people of today our connections, often so temporary in nature, still do manage to leave a footprint. Themes of regret, loss, loneliness, and the desire to escape all ring strongly throughout. A unique and memorable read.
March 4, 2018
A wonderful collection of poems written to people the author don't talk to any more. Touching and full of honesty. A book to remind us that poetry can be an exercise to exorcise... or not. Totally recommended!
February 15, 2018
I read a draft of this when it was written and I'm pretty sure it's my favorite of Michael J Seidlinger's books. It's quite different than his novels but gets to the core of what he's always meant to do with his writing very quickly and simply, and with a really strong emotional heft especially if you read it in one sitting.
April 2, 2018
This is a challenging book to talk about, for a number of reasons. It's some heavy stuff, deeply affecting. So much loss, but there always is. All the best things are transitory. At least there was something to lose. As difficult as the losses are, there was something there to begin with to be able to feel its absence as a loss. That alone is beautiful, and all that can be done is to feel that beautifully.
January 23, 2018
I keep texting you--you don't have to read this--expecting you to say "I know," when you don’t say a thing.
November 27, 2018
STANDARD LONELINESS PACKAGE reminds me of the eighth step in twelve-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous: “Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.” In some cases Seidlinger harmed the subjects of his poems and sometimes they harmed him, but all are lost to the author, including fictional woman he named Ruth and Sarah.
Seidlinger is brave to address these people and to look long and hard at those lost to him, and how social media both connects and distances people. The book contains poems and an essay about a road trip. “...the inert moments spent staring at a screen remind [me] of all the hours, all the days, the months in figurative seclusion, all the sentences written that’ll never be read, at all the books published that’ll never reach any more than a handful. And yet it’s still in this act of solitude that I look to make a connection, to be something other than alone. There’s something so broken about it, but look I’m still here. I’m writing in the darkness of a room, shortly after dusk.”
My favorite poems in the collection are dedicated to Sarah, Emma, Unknown (#1 and #2), Lauren, Kyle, May, and Derek. I look forward to reading Seidlinger’s fiction.
Seidlinger is brave to address these people and to look long and hard at those lost to him, and how social media both connects and distances people. The book contains poems and an essay about a road trip. “...the inert moments spent staring at a screen remind [me] of all the hours, all the days, the months in figurative seclusion, all the sentences written that’ll never be read, at all the books published that’ll never reach any more than a handful. And yet it’s still in this act of solitude that I look to make a connection, to be something other than alone. There’s something so broken about it, but look I’m still here. I’m writing in the darkness of a room, shortly after dusk.”
My favorite poems in the collection are dedicated to Sarah, Emma, Unknown (#1 and #2), Lauren, Kyle, May, and Derek. I look forward to reading Seidlinger’s fiction.
January 23, 2018
I was lucky to get an advance copy of this poetry collection. Each poem is a door into a relationship that stuns you with how bare it lays the soul, puts into words what is impossible to say. These poems stand alone but read together give you an unflinching portrait of a universal human quest to connect.
March 12, 2018
Heartbreaking, beautiful, oddly uplifting.
April 11, 2018
First half is particularly outstanding.
June 23, 2019
On the back cover, Seidlinger writes “A Book Made to Haunt Me”, yet reading it in all of an hour I found myself questioning whether prior to publication he ever wondered how many more bridges he might burn along with the people he dedicated each of these poems to.
Warning to all sensitive readers: one poem is dedicated to a dog he kept in a crate for two days without food or water and nearly died while he binged on alcohol.
In a word, these poems are confessions and I didn’t much feel like being the recepticle for his shame.
Great cover though.
Warning to all sensitive readers: one poem is dedicated to a dog he kept in a crate for two days without food or water and nearly died while he binged on alcohol.
In a word, these poems are confessions and I didn’t much feel like being the recepticle for his shame.
Great cover though.
June 23, 2023
It’s not so much poetry as it is lyric-portraits. It’s gorgeous once you get into the flow, but it is still a little disappointing.
January 12, 2022
Seidlinger presents a collection of poems with each one written to somebody in his life. It creates a brave collection that displays the range of relationships and the emotions that come along with that. There is pain, spite, sorrow, vindictiveness, longing and more throughout the pages.
I took this one in bitesize chunks as it was sometimes difficult to process a lot of poems at once given they have a similar feel as they are addressing a person that is unknown to the reader and all the names blend a bit to form a unknown entity that is constantly having a finger pointed at it in the various ways described above.
This is a brave collection of poetry though; to so brazenly name names and the feelings associated with them. It's almost a foreign concept to this Scotsman, who is much more likely to let his feelings simmer and a relationship die away without addressing the issues or just lose touch subconsciously and leave the odd like on social media.
I took this one in bitesize chunks as it was sometimes difficult to process a lot of poems at once given they have a similar feel as they are addressing a person that is unknown to the reader and all the names blend a bit to form a unknown entity that is constantly having a finger pointed at it in the various ways described above.
This is a brave collection of poetry though; to so brazenly name names and the feelings associated with them. It's almost a foreign concept to this Scotsman, who is much more likely to let his feelings simmer and a relationship die away without addressing the issues or just lose touch subconsciously and leave the odd like on social media.
October 15, 2019
Oddly the essay at the end of all things has piqued my interest in reading more Seidlinger. At first it seemed like filler—the big font made me think it was just added to pad out the book to some arbitrary desired length—but it's a nice note to end on. There are some good poems in here, but not a high enough ratio to get four stars.
December 31, 2019
This collection of poems was written by the author to people he does not speak to or see anymore. It is a wonderfully unique set of poetry and I fully enjoyed each one.
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January 19, 2022I read this for my English class.
August 5, 2018
In letters framed as poems or poems that reveal the letters of the piece and the certain peace that comes of having written in apostrophe, this collection was one of my surprise finds and reads of Summer 2018. Seidlinger's letters are those he has lost and are presented as what was and what was meant; the middle and the beginnings of the loss; and the feelings resulting of absence unresolved. Suitable for secondary classroom teachers and students who want to focus on epistolary form in the writing workshop.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews