Baby, I Don't Care

by Chelsey Minnis

Chelsey Minnis's new collection of poems follows the struggle of a flawed character in a cinematic world. Playing with old ideas of wealth and love from Hollywood's golden era, these poems flirt with nostalgia without ever succumbing to it, casting a new light on the present through the fantasies of the past.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2018

About the author

Chelsey Minnis was born in Dallas and grew up in Denver. She attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the author of Poemland (Wave Books 2009), Zirconia (Fence Books, 2001), Foxina (Seeing Eye Books, 2002) and Bad Bad (Fence Books, 2007). She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information on this author, go to:
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/61-...

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darling, I think you're my husband.
And this is the golden breakdown.
Or else some kind of mental leopardskin.
Anyway, I never mean anything I say on a yacht.
Now what's the most important thing in the world again?

Let me give you my feedback.
My feedback is arf arf arf.
You wouldn't understand, of course.
Is there any hope that I was never born?
Finally, everybody gets the right idea.

[Kevin O'Rourke · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review of Baby, I Don't Care in Colorado Review

https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/...

[Jessie McMains · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so extremely *me*. By that I don’t mean it’s anything like my poetry, because most of my poetry is very different from this book. I mean the persona in this book is like my persona (particularly when I’m performing/meeting new people) and that it’s relevant to my interests. But enough about me, darling. These poems are fun to read until a line catches you and throws a drink in your face. But baby, even that’s fun if you know what’s good for you.

[Karen Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up this book of poetry on the recommendation of Dwight Garner, NYT book critic. Smart, funny, and dark collection of poems inspired by 1930’s Hollywood film noir. Reading this collection felt like I had crawled inside the minds of the femme fatales of classic noir and heroines of screwball comedies but with a twist of calculating amorality. Unlike anything I’ve read before and an interesting way to begin my reading year.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baby, I love this book of poetry.
If you can't enjoy cold calculation, don't bother.
More poetry should be red velvet and gold-veined tiles.
It is nice when there are ice cubes and a cold shoulder.
Why should my opinion of poetry concern anyone?
I'm here to entertain my own interests.
The review's over, so try to look pleased.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My brother recommended this one, a collection of poems where Minnis' first acknowledgement is to Turner Classic Movies.... Minnis is writing a kind of poem here, mostly 35 live poems, broken into five line stanzas where each line stands on its own, as some sort of nuts declarative sentence in the voice of a femme fatale addressing the dummy who's fallen for her. So there's a lot of 1940s talk about sex, chandeliers, champagne, and punches to the face.

Others have noted that the three sections of the book maybe chart the progress of this mutually abusive relationship-- Minnis is really in control in section 1, and in the 3rd, she wants the relationship to continue even if the other partner has lost some interest. But I'm not sure that's a reading that is especially rich. To me, the book is maybe best a poem at a time, or even a line at a time, as Minnis kind of smashes one hard boiled sentence against another, often non-sequitors, and seeing what sparks result. They might make you cringe, maybe you'll laugh, etc, but there's something here, to be sure.

[Brenna Laird · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don’t usually like poetry but i decided i want to give it another shot. i think this was a really good collection for me to start with because it really turned into a full narrative.

i still don’t think i really Get poetry, but i did actually enjoy this, and i plan to go back and reread it to try and learn how to get it.. who knows maybe this is the start of me liking poetry?????

[RD Chiriboga Moncayo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accessible, clever and very entertaining poetry inspired by Film Noir.

[Eric T. Voigt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. She said something in the paragraph on page 237 that went something like "I can't have too much of what I like," and I'm right there with her. I really liked what was going on on page 15. Should I quote it? I can't remember it off the top of my head! I read so much poetry tonight!

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

a fictitious narrative about the downfall of hollywood stardom. bold, inventive and full of charm.

[Nora]

so vampy and fun

[elise amaryllis · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5
not sure what exactly it was about this book that enthralled me, but i loved it. i guess it could be a lot of things—this book has such a strong voice, i imagined the persona of the poet, separate from Minnis, quite vividly. especially in voice. in that, i feel like this poetry operates as a story in a much different way than i’m used to. it feels like a new kind of fiction.

it often feels funny and fantastical, for lack of a better word. it’s also super approachable. i don’t need poetry to be approachable, per se, but i loved reading the short poems, i loved the five-lined stanzas and how much this book felt like a conversation. i wanted to know even more about the woman the book seems to be about, even after getting to know her in 200+ pages of somewhat abstract poems. i just really loved this one. it feels like something that would either be loved or hated, though—it’s such a weird way to go about writing poetry and it really stuck out to me. i picked it up randomly and i’m so fucking glad i did.

some favorites, by number:
(i loved so many of these poems i just wanted to quote them ALL)
5, 8, 21, 33, 37, 45, 50, 58, 63, 75, 89, 90, 120, 125, 127, 132, 133, 145, 149, 161, 167-169, 188, 201, 245, 246

some quotes:

5
"What's the use of thinking?
Some people can't come along.
Sometimes I don't talk to anyone, I just fixate on their necktie.
The kind of person I am, you don't hurt the other person.
But your perfume climbs on like a tarantula.

Am I laughing?
On the contrary.
Please let me think of the right self-reprimands.
I assure you, this will be a conventional poem.
Now let me introduce you to a hungry tigress, me."

57
"Tonight I'll wear the burnt-orange gown.
You know I look well in burnt orange.
Baby, it's natural to want a thousand dollars!
Why don't you ever say a dirty thing to me?
Darling, you're undersexed.

Let's fall in love,
just the three of us.
Let's be objectionable and immoral and utterly no good.
Should we lie down right here and fight about it?
Now bring me those dance instructions."

84
"You didn't lock your door.
You never were very particular about your associations.
Does it give you a lovely guilty feeling?
To me you're a national disgrace.
Please act accordingly.

I didn't hit you very hard.
It all depends what you want out of life.
Never mind talking.
I know I'm a bad woman.
I think you'll find it to our mutual benefit."

119
"I want to shoot myself!
But how will I ever get hold of a gun?
Now, I am thinking too hard.
It makes my cheeks hot.
This is no time to be brainy!

Death? I don't love it.
I already know how everything is.
That's why I wear a bikini and ride a horse.
Are we going to get along?
The word for what I want is "money."

162
"I need psychiatric help. I rate pretty high there.
You know, in many ways I'm a terrible girl.
My attitude is one of complete optimism
Do you intend on going on?
I'm going to tear you apart and throw the pieces to the lions.

I'm sorry for slapping your face!
And now, let me begin 77 sunsets without you.
Let me whisper into your dictaphone,
"I murdered my pet canary."
Behold my dazzling mental illness like a chandelier."

[Janna Shaftan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chelsey Minnis, my obsession.


Am I laughing?
On the contrary.
Please let me think of the right self-reprimands.
I assure you, this will be a conventional poem.
Now let me introduce you to a hungry tigress, me.

It would be, I understand, the very height of folly.
Let me tell you about love.
Anyone could take an overdose of this stuff.
Something's wrong with me and I like it.

Does anyone supervise me?
Now how much is this little poem going to cost me?
Have I said something awful? Why not?
I just want to be your nuisance.

There's such a thing as being too smart.
It's a lot of fun.
Does anyone ever get that look out of their eyes?
Supposing I don't want to live on memories?

Let me give you my feedback. My feedback is arf/arf/arf.
Now let's have my favorite thing, which is relief...
Do you have something in you that will make you stick?
In order to be happy I have to sacrifice my misery.

You know, money means very little to me.
It's a blind alley with a barred gate at the end.
I wasn't cut out for your way of living.
Just tell them politely I'm drunk in a gutter somewhere.
That's very often the case.

Love has the right-of-way before everything.
You're not very fond of me, are you?
You won't get away with it.
After all, what do you get by traveling the primrose path?
Oh, more dissipation?
I'll have to try that sometime.

Now what's a time and place compared to a strong feeling?
I won't even try to be civilized where you're concerned.
I don't know why I tell you this except I tell you everything.
I guess I'm horribly in love, can't keep my mind on my cards.
Naturally, I'm going to smoke in my nightgown!

I don't try to seem very intelligent anymore.
I am beyond such effects.
Do you want me to write a poem?
Then hold my flask!
These words are not a time capsule. They're for somebody alive!
Something matters, but what is it?
A window with a very long fall underneath?
One word of praise would cause me to act contrary to my own self-interest.
There's only one sensible thing to do.
That remains to be seen.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading more poetry over the last year, but there's usually a feeling of inner push - having focused on novels for decades and then on rapid-fire, easily-consumable tweets for the past five years, it was and is not easy to master my attention and sustain the focus necessary to read a poem. Baby, I Don't Care was, in that context, an extraordinary experience. Its voice is extremely narrow and circumscribed - you have to hear the whole book in your head as if you're hearing one end of a conversation. the part spoken by a Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth, Katherine Hepburn maybe - some tough but vulnerable dame in a slinky gown with a drink in one hand. One five-line stanza after another, peppered with quips and non-sequiturs and put-downs, the book proceeds to take you through some strange relationship drama. I bought it for a friend who liked Chelsea Minnis, but started reading it and was part of the way in before giving it to her. Even though the book doesn't have a story in the typical sense, it left me with the nagging sense that I wanted to read the rest and see this woman through to whatever lay in store for her. I'm not sure what happened, it still has the ambiguity poetry usually holds for me, but it was a satisfying experience.

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of short poems where the author takes on the persona of a femme fatale and delivers snappy zingers that seem yanked out of film noir script. Lines often stand on their own leaving the reader to conjure up the gist of the scene/emotion. The book is divided in three acts (?) and several one word chapters: Death, Business, Gold Digger, Handsome.. Despite the compartmentalization, all poems share a common tone and recurring elements, seductive one-liners, champagne, diamonds, money and invitations to drunkenness. The true joy of the book is contained in constructing a puzzle that hints at a darker story, may be, as well as the humor and twists in some memorable lines : "And all the baby dolls have recorded cries." The sum of all these pulpy material and underlying sadness builds to the obvious question: why choose this character? Is it a defense mechanism, a story of abuse, a yearning for a simpler love or romance transaction. or just a bored musing?. In any case, I enjoyed it.

"Let me tell you how I know things.
I just think about them very hard.
And then I get ideas.
And maybe they’re the right ideas and maybe they’re the wrong ideas.
Now, can’t you try that?"

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Minnis develops such a specific, refined tone in this collection-think Ashbery, but laser-focused on the sort of wealth-obsessed, white-privileged, trashy high-society woman in an abusive relationship that someone like Lana Del Rey has worked on in a different medium. Being as it is poetry, there's a bit more separation from the self than Del Rey provides, which means its a bit less complicated to approach these poems on their own terms. I really applaud Minnis for her dedicated work here, and I also appreciate Wave Books' spaced out approach to the construction of the book- each poem taking up 6-8 pages with each getting a separate title page and two stanzas per page at most, which not only abets the spacey tone but also prevents each poem, as similar as some of them can feel, from cramping together in a more conventional 80 page volume. I do think that it became a little wearing to read these one after another, which is why I took so long to finish this book, only picking it up and reading a few every once and a while, but that shouldn't indicate a decline in quality over the individual poems or the poet. Good stuff!

[Yourfiendmrjones · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface, it feels like someone took every noir and hard-boiled paperback cliche and threw it into a blender to create this series of poems. But look below the surface and, like one of my favorite novels by the film critic David Thomson “Suspects,” there’s more than meets the eye in “Baby, I Don’t Care.” It feels like a collage put together by someone so gets the neurotic desperation churning beneath most film noir and hard boiled pulp classics.

Moreover it feels like the narrator (or narrators) are desperate themselves and are trying to find the depth beyond the pith.

As the end of the day, I could not tell you one line from any section in “Baby, I Don’t Care” (besides the title itself, cribbed from one of the great Robert Mitchum noirs “Out of the Past”- as well as the title of a very good biography about Mitchum) but I can tell you I couldn’t put the book down until I had to.

[Samira Abed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a good portion of this (like maybe the last fourth) while watching Monk and am writing this review while watching another episode of Monk. I think it's a good companion. This book was kind of like joke overload. I don't know if I can deal with a joke per stanza, I might need more seriousness otherwise I feel like I have to read this in kind of a silly voice and that just disrupts my attention.

Ultimately there are like a handful of people I would handsdown recommend this to. There's something really attentive about how just perfect the language is. Totally, totally Turner classic movie. But it has to be a 3 for me.

[hjh · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There is something in the mind called the soul” (5)

“Never again will I write you some trash!” (26)

“I want to be magnificent, but you must be magnificent with me!” (38)

“Sometimes I ride the Ferris wheel for hours not thinking of you” (43)

“Let’s be very nice to each other until one of us can’t stand it” (49)

“Something’s wrong with me and I like it. / How much is this little poem going to cost me?” (59)

“Church! It bores me./ I want to live in a system with you” (114)

“Let me tell you how I know things./ I just think about them very hard./ and then I get ideas./ and maybe they’re the right ideas and maybe they’re the wrong ideas” (199)

“What is life? A catalogue of experiences?” (201)

[Susan Kinnevy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell immediately in love with this collection. I don't usually read poetry collections, but this was so good I only read parts at a time because I wanted it to last. Subversive, nihilistic, cynical -- just like the movie genres she riffs from, these poems are also hilarious -- at least I thought so. This is a library book, so I'll be buying my own copy to enjoy whenever I need to be uplifted.

[Julian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Infinitely (and very quickly) readable, there are many lines swiped from or inspired by great old US Film Noir and Hollywood, but I was also reminded in its tone and first person declarative style of the later Freddie Seidel. When I finished, I felt it a was a little too light, or one-note. But perhaps I'm just looking for something meaty in something that intentionally mimics trashy hollywood entertainment of a certain era... I of all people should let poems be fun and escapist too.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what I read exactly, but this book of poetry excited me so much!

All sharp corners and edges. Humor balances the cuts.

You follow a female narrator that brings to mind a would-be movie starlet of Hollywood's golden age in the 1950s. She's a gold digger with an acerbic wit. She takes turns talking to us and her lover. The dysfunctional relationship intoxicates.

I'm already reading again.

[kari trail · Rating 3 out of 5]

“aren’t i some kind of human being? or am i just a dead swan?”

ooh these were a silly batch of poems. such an indifferent, scathing, shoulder-shrugging voice throughout… just gesturing towards some wild, scandalous story buried under the surface i was dying to know. these poems are so fun individually! i liked them a bit less when reading them back to back… the format starts to feel too repetitive. but! when read in snippets: delightful !

[Andrew Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chelsey Minnis is cool, in your face, unrelenting, vulgar and soft, and everything else everyone wishes they weren't but would be given the chance in this book. It's a xanax haze in a smoking lounge, nostalgia for another time, and the bill finally coming to be paid.
I've read this twice for poetry classes, and the second time around it just got better. I'll have to return to this again every year or so.

[sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

200+ pages of sarcastic, diamond-encrusted meditations that hinge on old Hollywood themes. A Daisy (Gatsby anyone?) of a time. The poems are as big as emeralds, and slide down the esophagus like the finest champagne, popping along the way. A bit long and tired towards the end, but hilarious and morbid to its core.

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, more Chelsey Minnis! A brilliant, selfish, sassy persona turns uber-privileged old Hollywood ennui over and over again in her powdery, manicured hands & then throws it through the windshield of a Cadillac like a baseball. And writes a poem about it. I like it like Lana Del Rey and expensive champagne.

[Barbara Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book. I kept hearing Joan Crawford's voice as I was reading. So many familiar lines stolen or borrowed from 1940s movies. References to dressing gowns, diamonds, money, indifference. There's an approach/avoidance conflict as it concerns relationships. But this book is also very funny in spots, often laugh out loud funny.

[Olivia Linder · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just couldn’t get interested. I got this book for free a while back from a promotional sale, and saw it on my bookshelf recently and decided to try and get back into reading poetry, but I just don’t think I’m the target audience for this book. Would probably rate it lower but, as I said, I don’t think I’m the target audience so I’ll be a little more generous with the stars.

[Caitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favourite book. Ever. These poems are just... Sumptuous, they are pieced together from these beautiful shards of nostalgic and glorious luxury. Like, I just can't describe how fantastic a scene Minnis conjures.

[Kelsey Wort · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, witty, smart, funny, biting, quick poems. I really enjoyed them.