Useful Junk

by Erika Meitner

In her previous five collections of poems, Erika Meitner has established herself as one of America’s most incisive observers, cherished for her remarkable ability to temper catastrophe with tenderness. Meitner’s sixth collection, Useful Junk, explores memory, desire, and the various ways the body sees and is seen. Part travelogue, part dream journal, part epistle, these poems arrive right on time with their wisdom, wit, and wonder. With dauntless vulnerability, Meitner travels a world of strip malls, supermarkets, airplanes, and subway platforms, remaining porous and open to the world, always returning to the intimacies rooted deep within the self as a shout against the dying earth. These poems affirm that we are made of every intimate moment we have ever had, and plumb the ways in which digital technologies—sexting, Uber, selfies, Instagram—are reframing self-image and shifting the ratios of risk and reward in erotic encounters. Boldly affirming that pleasure is a vital form of knowledge, Useful Junk reminds us that our selves are made real and beautiful by our embodied experiences, and that our desire is what keeps us alive.

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

Published April 5, 2022

About the author

Erika Meitner is the author of 6 books of poems, including Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls (Anhinga Press, 2011); Ideal Cities (Harper Perennial, 2010), which was a 2009 National Poetry Series winner; Copia (BOA Editions, 2014); and Holy Moly Carry Me (BOA Editions, 2018), which was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, and the winner of the National Jewish Book Award in Poetry. Her most recent book, Useful Junk, is due out from BOA Editions in April of 2022. Her work has appeared most recently in The New Yorker, The Believer,VQR, Orion, The New Republic and elsewhere. She is currently a professor of English at Virginia Tech.

Reviews

[Erin Cataldi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not a huge poetry fan so feel free to not give this review much credence. Many of the poems in this collection were about hookups, blowjobs, bad decisions, and dick picks. I have no problem with any of those, I was just expecting to see a little more variety in this collection. Some poems resonated with me and others were a struggle to read. It was a total crapshoot. Some of the themes and poems felt relatable and powerful and others felt disjointed. Poetry hits everyone different - so I fully expect that others will love this collection, just personally not my cup of tea.

[tteise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a little bit of a mixed experience for me. I had a hard time getting into it and I felt confused and discombobulated after some of the poems.
But I have heard Erika Meitner at two poetry readings and I absolutely loved them and her. That’s why I kept reading on, even when it got difficult.
What I really loved about Useful Junk was the theme of things in your past still very much affecting your present. The speaker in the poems has not forgotten their exes, even if the relationship happened long ago and the speaker is married with children now. It felt very relatable to read about someone else who is constantly thinking about people and events that happened long ago, even when your life is different now.
I might not recommend this book to someone who’s just getting in to poetry, but I liked it and would read more by Meitner.

[katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Serena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful Junk by Erika Meitner is intimate and existential all at once, and readers will swim in the morass and indulge in memory and perception imparted with quick wit and contemplative angst. Meitner provides us with a bridge between our memories and their changing patterns and our desires to be seen coupled with the anxiety of how we are perceived by others and ourselves.

Full review: https://savvyverseandwit.com/2022/04/...

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Temple of the Spirit

Let's say you are on a plane, and before
the plane rises to clear congregations of
treetops and blue-gray mountains,
you watch the woman who called you up
by zone number then scanned your ticket--
you watch her from your plane seat don
a knit cap & head out to the runway to
wave your plane from the gate with two
bright orange batons, her arms held in an
uppercase L as our plane taxis past her
and her fluorescent green safety vest
to rise quickly over the tiny houses and
iced-over cattle ponds of the Eastern Shore.
Let's say that now you are on that plane
thrusting itself deep into clouds which
enshroud everything for a moment in a
dense halo of whiteness that is not fog--
the kind of bright cloudiness you'd expect
from the transition to a movie's dream
sequence or the opening to an episode
of Highway to Heaven with Michael Landon
right before he walks down that deserted
canyon road, duffel bag in hand, then hops
in a baby blue 1977 Ford when Victor French
pulls over for him. In the show, Landon is
actually an angel stripped of his wings.
He and French (a retired cop) are given
assignments by The Boss to help troubled
humans overcome their problems. What I'm
saying is sometimes we are asked to arrive
in a new city and assume the identities of
business employees or civil service workers
for the greater good. Or sometimes we are forced
to hold out our arms like cheerleaders for a team
we don't believe in as if our bodies can influence
the score no matter what we are thinking, but
what if the team is humanity? I don't know
if there's a god, but sometimes we are asked
to carry a baton for long periods of time as if
we're in a relay and can hand it off to the
to the next person waiting usually somewhere other
than the place we began, though that action is
so tricky and fails often. I hope the gate woman
was L for team Lift-off or Levity or Love of the
human race--Luck for our tin can with twin
engines newly cleared of snow. Let's say yes.

Erika Meitner's poetry collection Useful Junk captures the spirit of her collection Holy Moly Carry Me. It's full of creative, provocative verse conveying her unique perspective. Her forays into erotic territory are surprising, but these surprising moments enhance rather than blur her vision.

Another soul satisfying collection. If you enjoyed Holy Moly Carry Me, you certainly want to continue with this collection.

...and the band is trying to play the theme song from Mission
Impossible now--they're on their third start--the conductor is
apologetic, but they can't get the rhythm right: 5/4 time and
percussion didn't rehearse with winds due to class scheduling
so the instruments sound like they're racing each other in a relay
where someone keeps falling behind, has dropped the baton.
We are failing each other in every possible arena, this auditorium
of listeners, a metal tube throttling through clouds, the spectacle
of love or crucifixion or vulnerability, a conversion experience
at 40,000 feet. Do you not know your bodies are temples of the holy spirit?
I think, each time I look at my phone glowing like a flame I cup
in my hands.

from "the experience we are thrust into"

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erika Meitner came and read for my Poetry 409 class at the end of this past fall semester, and I found her poetry to be very different from what I’d come across before. She has this guileless spirit, from what I could tell in the few times I’ve seen her, that emanates in her writing through a very unique voice. This doesn’t take away from the reality of the themes that are brought up in Useful Junk, only shows them from different perspectives (one that stood out to me—sitting in your car, that moment of passing when you sit on your phone, see other people sitting on their phones). I was reminded of her book once more at a Monsters of Poetry event last night, when I noticed a lot of the distant (from me) understanding from the first time i read Useful Junk slip away when I heard the voice in the poems read them herself.

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evocative collection

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gutted me again and again. Erika Meitner is a fucking genius.

[Rebekah Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply thirst-quenching. Erika Meitner knows how to lead you down a trail and then make a tree fall in front of you so you are simply gasping at the sheer magnitude of it as well as thanking yourself for being there at all. I love this collection.

[Robin Schaer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give Useful Junk more than five stars, I would. Meitner's latest collection of poetry is riveting, sexy, nostalgic, moving, and so fiercely alive.

[Gabriel Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC given by Edelweiss+ for Honest Review

Super enjoyable read. Meitner has a way that makes simple notions and themes flourish with abundance and emotion within her poems.

My favorites are: "i would like to be the you in someone's poem", "Eternity Now", and "A Brief Ontological Investigation."

[Eliza Pillsbury]

I don't really feel qualified to rate poetry, but I got the chance to listen to Ms. Meitner read at the Joynes Reading Room last week, and I've enjoyed working my way through the rest of this collection. I've been thinking a lot about my body and my creative practice lately (unrelated topics, or are they?), and she speaks about both beautifully.

[Ella Hitchman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confusing and boring, and very repetitive. Why on earth did the author describe the excited expression of a toddler on their first plane ride as an “o-face”. Some of the poems were interesting until they turned out to just be about some ex again.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about memory, aging, desire, and one's own body.

from A Seeming Impenetrability of the Space Between: "When were were young and / stupid, and maybe beautiful as a beer bottle // shattered on a moonlit sidewalk, we'd / fuck all ight and I knew if I opened you up / below the rib-cage you'd be filled with // jewels or whatever gave off the most / lights"

from this thought a hazy question: "men see women's bodies not the way we see our own bodies, with the / scars and misshapen bits and hanging flesh, but as gifts, wrapped / things filled with pleasure and surprise and I knew as soon as she said it/ she was right"

[Paula Frew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful Junk

I enjoyed the collection of poetry by Erika Meitner. I was lucky to get to hear her read in an online Zoom conference.