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Fixer: Poems – A New York Times Editors' Choice Exploring Labor, Love, and a Father's Death
From the author of the award-winning Tap Out – “a gritty, insightful debut” (Washington Post) – Edgar Kunz’s second poetry collection propels the reader across the shifting terrain of late-capitalist America.
Temp jobs, conspiracy theories, squatters, talk therapy, urban gardening, the robot this collection fixes its eye on the strangeness of labor, through poems that are searching, keen, and wry. The virtuosic central sequence explores the untimely death of the poet’s estranged father, a handyman and addict, and the brothers left to sort through the detritus of a life long lost to them. Through lyrical, darkly humorous vignettes, Kunz asks what it costs to build a home and a love that not only lasts but sustains.
Temp jobs, conspiracy theories, squatters, talk therapy, urban gardening, the robot this collection fixes its eye on the strangeness of labor, through poems that are searching, keen, and wry. The virtuosic central sequence explores the untimely death of the poet’s estranged father, a handyman and addict, and the brothers left to sort through the detritus of a life long lost to them. Through lyrical, darkly humorous vignettes, Kunz asks what it costs to build a home and a love that not only lasts but sustains.
79 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 22, 2023
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About the author
Edgar Kunz
3 books43 followersEdgar Kunz is the author of Fixer (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2023) and Tap Out (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2019). He has been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. New poems appear in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, POETRY, and Oxford American. He lives in Baltimore.
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November 29, 2023For a poet it's tough when your debut collection comes out, cap-guns blazing, impressing readers looking for something different. Kunz filled that bill with his initial book, Tap Out: Poems, because the voice and the topic (blue collar upbringing, alcoholic father, sensitive son) hit just the right notes -- a feat not easily done by a veteran poet, much less one new on the scene.
This sophomore effort, Fixer, wants to ride the draft of that fast opening act, but never quite succeeds on the same level. Yes, in the middle of three sections, a suite of title-less poems return to the demise of the speaker's dad, but the after-the-fact verse about dad doesn't quite live up to the tension found in a living and breathing father in the first book.
Here's an example of a poem from this follow-up collection:
Good Deal
Fast light on my hands
as I peel the sticker
from an apple on the train.
Viruses, I read, are
colorless, though lab techs
will blast one with atoms
so we can see its edges.
We slow around a bend,
then gather new speed.
My lender calls to ask
if I feel good. I set my screen
to black-and-white to make
the living world more vivid.
He says to hang tight.
He assures me we can go
lower. In Springfield we swap
the electric engine for diesel,
then drag a small, dark cloud
across the Berkshires.
A stash of apples in my bag:
Galas. An Empire.
We blow through an empty
station in a mechanical wind.
A friend of mine rides
cross-country in the bellies
of emptied-out coal cars
or on a plate of steel
called a porch. He pays
for almost nothing. He's one
of my very favorite people.
I scroll through the latest
mortgage rates, having no idea
what a good deal looks like.
My sweetheart and I have
a rented apartment the size
of half a train car,
but we have a miniature
dishwasher, so we feel
we live in luxury.
Here you see the themes of financial struggle in play, but also some wandering as the poem briefly gets away from itself. One wonders why there's this insertion about the speaker's friends, "one of my very favorite people," for instance, sounding like a personal shout-out to him when he reads this. It all seems a bit "inner circle-like."
Still, some of the minimalist, easily approached pieces offer small pleasures that hint at the mastery readers of the first book came to appreciate, so all is not lost by any means.
This sophomore effort, Fixer, wants to ride the draft of that fast opening act, but never quite succeeds on the same level. Yes, in the middle of three sections, a suite of title-less poems return to the demise of the speaker's dad, but the after-the-fact verse about dad doesn't quite live up to the tension found in a living and breathing father in the first book.
Here's an example of a poem from this follow-up collection:
Good Deal
Fast light on my hands
as I peel the sticker
from an apple on the train.
Viruses, I read, are
colorless, though lab techs
will blast one with atoms
so we can see its edges.
We slow around a bend,
then gather new speed.
My lender calls to ask
if I feel good. I set my screen
to black-and-white to make
the living world more vivid.
He says to hang tight.
He assures me we can go
lower. In Springfield we swap
the electric engine for diesel,
then drag a small, dark cloud
across the Berkshires.
A stash of apples in my bag:
Galas. An Empire.
We blow through an empty
station in a mechanical wind.
A friend of mine rides
cross-country in the bellies
of emptied-out coal cars
or on a plate of steel
called a porch. He pays
for almost nothing. He's one
of my very favorite people.
I scroll through the latest
mortgage rates, having no idea
what a good deal looks like.
My sweetheart and I have
a rented apartment the size
of half a train car,
but we have a miniature
dishwasher, so we feel
we live in luxury.
Here you see the themes of financial struggle in play, but also some wandering as the poem briefly gets away from itself. One wonders why there's this insertion about the speaker's friends, "one of my very favorite people," for instance, sounding like a personal shout-out to him when he reads this. It all seems a bit "inner circle-like."
Still, some of the minimalist, easily approached pieces offer small pleasures that hint at the mastery readers of the first book came to appreciate, so all is not lost by any means.
February 18, 2023
“fixer” is a neat little collection of poems mainly about the mundanity of the midwest. born and raised in the midwest, i found a lot in these poems that i could relate to, a lot that i’ve personally seen. if there’s one thing edgar kunz can do, it’s create a sense of place and location firmly rooted through imagery.
the poems are all fairly uniform, but some do experiment a bit with length. i was really hoping that there would be more poems that pushed the boundary of form, but i also understand the restraints of an ebook. i feel that there was just something missing, whether it be in line, enjambment, form, or something else. maybe a single caesura would have done it for me, who knows. the tone and meter are essentially the same in each poem, save for a few. i was just left wanting more.
thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review!
the poems are all fairly uniform, but some do experiment a bit with length. i was really hoping that there would be more poems that pushed the boundary of form, but i also understand the restraints of an ebook. i feel that there was just something missing, whether it be in line, enjambment, form, or something else. maybe a single caesura would have done it for me, who knows. the tone and meter are essentially the same in each poem, save for a few. i was just left wanting more.
thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review!
February 20, 2023
Edward Kunz is a poet of the everyday world. The poems in the forthcoming collection Fixer are filled with close, rigorously unsentimental observations about, for example, the challenges of daily life and making a living. He writes about job hunting and work shifts and negotiating rent with landlords. In his poems, he is up ladders or stocking gas station shelves with sun chips and snickers, or working to replace broken cottage windowpanes. The world around him is rarely beautiful, but the light can sometimes hit just right, and the poet provides observation without judgement.
A number of poems are about his father. In an early poem, he reports listening to a drunken voice message from his father. Later, he and his brother clean out his father’s desolate apartment after his death, and we learn that he has not seen his father in ten years. Other poems trace conversations with his brothers and his mother about his father.
He was like tissue paper
coming apart in water.
He is clear-eyed about small wins—a landlord lets him move to a better apartment for a reduced rent, he and his girlfriend find another apartment with a tiny dishwasher and feel fortunate, or the conversation in which his ex-wife agrees that if she can claim him on her taxes, he won’t owe her anything else. These moments begin to gather momentum. I was reminded of what Pablo Neruda said about Walt Whitman, that “he held himself to be the debtor of happiness and sorrow alike.” And that in “Walt Whitman’s work one never finds the ignorant being humbled, nor is the human condition ever found offended.” (NYT April 14, 1972). This feels true of Kunz as well.
In “Night Heron,” the poet reports on juxtapositions such as seeing a heron perched on a theatre awning on which is written: “We Live in a Fake Democracy,” and later having a tender moment with a girlfriend in the dank basement of his mother’s house.
I’m letting
myself feel how astonishing how
astonishing what our love can make
of a place like that
These moments of connection—with others, with the natural world, with plain dumb luck--light up the otherwise bleak landscape and create the deepest resonances of the collection.
Thanks to the publisher, Ecco Press, and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC of this book.
A number of poems are about his father. In an early poem, he reports listening to a drunken voice message from his father. Later, he and his brother clean out his father’s desolate apartment after his death, and we learn that he has not seen his father in ten years. Other poems trace conversations with his brothers and his mother about his father.
He was like tissue paper
coming apart in water.
He is clear-eyed about small wins—a landlord lets him move to a better apartment for a reduced rent, he and his girlfriend find another apartment with a tiny dishwasher and feel fortunate, or the conversation in which his ex-wife agrees that if she can claim him on her taxes, he won’t owe her anything else. These moments begin to gather momentum. I was reminded of what Pablo Neruda said about Walt Whitman, that “he held himself to be the debtor of happiness and sorrow alike.” And that in “Walt Whitman’s work one never finds the ignorant being humbled, nor is the human condition ever found offended.” (NYT April 14, 1972). This feels true of Kunz as well.
In “Night Heron,” the poet reports on juxtapositions such as seeing a heron perched on a theatre awning on which is written: “We Live in a Fake Democracy,” and later having a tender moment with a girlfriend in the dank basement of his mother’s house.
I’m letting
myself feel how astonishing how
astonishing what our love can make
of a place like that
These moments of connection—with others, with the natural world, with plain dumb luck--light up the otherwise bleak landscape and create the deepest resonances of the collection.
Thanks to the publisher, Ecco Press, and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC of this book.
November 17, 2023
A fantastic book of poetry that examines our lives in the present moment - particularly the prominence of our work in our identity. The title poem, which takes up the central third of the collection, is a meditation on the passing of the poet's alcoholic estranged father. Highly recommended.
February 19, 2023
I am so thankful to both Ecco, Netgalley, and Edgar Kunz for granting me Advanced Access to this gorgeous and honest collection of poetry before it's set to publish on August 22, 2023.
Written and versed similar to that of rap music, the prose in Fixer hits deep and hard into the various social issues plaguing our country at this point in time. I felt very moved by this piece and look forward to reading more content from this author, going forward.
Written and versed similar to that of rap music, the prose in Fixer hits deep and hard into the various social issues plaguing our country at this point in time. I felt very moved by this piece and look forward to reading more content from this author, going forward.
August 26, 2023
Precise and vulnerable; the poems are spare in the best of ways, distilled and reduced to the purest and most essential images and shifts. They portray significant experiences that together form an arc that the writer examines with a focus on the complex, ambiguous, and non-resolute. I really liked this collection!
April 23, 2025
Sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover.
The cover of Fixer, Edgar Kunz’ second collection of published poems, features a worn lighter. It is obvious the lighter has been used frequently over a long period of time. The metal is tarnished; the image of a ship sailing on waves is worn. The old Zippo implies the story of a real life lived.
That’s the book.
The collection is called Fixer, and everything hinges on the poem “Fixer,” a recounting of three brothers managing the immediate aftermath of their deceased father’s body and estate. Their relationship was complicated, although seemingly affectionate. The father declined at a point (un)certain, spent his time in the basement, divorced the brothers’ mother, lived alone, drank, showed up infrequently with good intentions and awkward hugs. No one knew he was dead for some time. The sons clear out his apartment, against their better judgment.
“Left it open / for the smell. Tried not to look / at the stain. Tried to be respectful.”
They take care of his personal effects:
“Everything / we touch, you touched. Your socks…Zippo with a carving of a whale, / proud ship in the distance.”
They look through his things one last time:
“Totes and boxes marked / DONATION are bound with rope / and staked neatly on giant rolling carts. / There he is, Noah says, pointing to the bin.”
Who is the fixer? It’s the father, the reader gleans as a friend of the father’s remembers:
“Chris, she says, oh you mean Handy, / great guy life of the party…plus he could fix / anything, he was amazing.” He could fix anything. He could juggle. The party was always at their parents’ place, once.
Structurally, the book itself does something interesting. Pre-“Fixer” poems are mostly about gig economy jobs, hustling, and other late stage capitalism concerns. Post-“Fixer” poems focus on the narrator’s own apartment, a relationship, human touch, starting again.
climbing the steps you pinch
my elbow and ask if I’m
okay and I hear myself
say yes which is not a lie though
I’m not listening I’m letting
myself feel how astonishing how
astonishing what our love can make
of a place like that
The cover of Fixer, Edgar Kunz’ second collection of published poems, features a worn lighter. It is obvious the lighter has been used frequently over a long period of time. The metal is tarnished; the image of a ship sailing on waves is worn. The old Zippo implies the story of a real life lived.
That’s the book.
The collection is called Fixer, and everything hinges on the poem “Fixer,” a recounting of three brothers managing the immediate aftermath of their deceased father’s body and estate. Their relationship was complicated, although seemingly affectionate. The father declined at a point (un)certain, spent his time in the basement, divorced the brothers’ mother, lived alone, drank, showed up infrequently with good intentions and awkward hugs. No one knew he was dead for some time. The sons clear out his apartment, against their better judgment.
“Left it open / for the smell. Tried not to look / at the stain. Tried to be respectful.”
They take care of his personal effects:
“Everything / we touch, you touched. Your socks…Zippo with a carving of a whale, / proud ship in the distance.”
They look through his things one last time:
“Totes and boxes marked / DONATION are bound with rope / and staked neatly on giant rolling carts. / There he is, Noah says, pointing to the bin.”
Who is the fixer? It’s the father, the reader gleans as a friend of the father’s remembers:
“Chris, she says, oh you mean Handy, / great guy life of the party…plus he could fix / anything, he was amazing.” He could fix anything. He could juggle. The party was always at their parents’ place, once.
Structurally, the book itself does something interesting. Pre-“Fixer” poems are mostly about gig economy jobs, hustling, and other late stage capitalism concerns. Post-“Fixer” poems focus on the narrator’s own apartment, a relationship, human touch, starting again.
climbing the steps you pinch
my elbow and ask if I’m
okay and I hear myself
say yes which is not a lie though
I’m not listening I’m letting
myself feel how astonishing how
astonishing what our love can make
of a place like that
October 31, 2023
Account
Because I was the one to end it,
and so soon, I offered to reimburse her
what I owed. She had covered
most of the wedding, the move,
our rent. I was living on the grace
of a friend, sleeping
in his sunroom on Folsom.
Every morning I opened my account
to see how little I had left.
It wasn't looking good
until she wrote to say we could forget it
if I would let her claim me
on her taxes. I guessed there was
a rebate for this kind of thing.
I could hear my friend knocking
around in the kitchen, making coffee,
frying eggs. I couldn't believe
my luck. I let myself be claimed. (10)
Because I was the one to end it,
and so soon, I offered to reimburse her
what I owed. She had covered
most of the wedding, the move,
our rent. I was living on the grace
of a friend, sleeping
in his sunroom on Folsom.
Every morning I opened my account
to see how little I had left.
It wasn't looking good
until she wrote to say we could forget it
if I would let her claim me
on her taxes. I guessed there was
a rebate for this kind of thing.
I could hear my friend knocking
around in the kitchen, making coffee,
frying eggs. I couldn't believe
my luck. I let myself be claimed. (10)
October 10, 2023
Pretty fuckin good! The middle titular sequence (navigating the death of an alcoholic father w the poet’s brother) is the strongest by far. Idk if it’s a masterpiece but Diane Seuss says so and she knows way fuckin more about poetry than I ever will
January 17, 2024
The poems did not resonate at all with me; pretty bland verse.
July 14, 2024
Gut-wrenching. A feel it in your soul compilation of great poems. Worth the read
Read
April 12, 2024“what a world I said / and she didn’t seem to hear and jogged / across the narrow street the moon / behind her rising or sinking / or neither it was hard to know”
March 21, 2023
Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the e-ARC
Usually CIS white male poetry doesn’t connect with me… however this somewhat gritty collection had me rapt, I read and reread this #BiteSizedBook over and over. Maybe it’s just the themes that hit home for me. I lost my brother to addiction and Kunz’s poems on the loss of his father and what it was like to enter the place his father passed away made me feel connected to the author. A shared experience that was visceral and sad without the melancholy or glorification of the dead that sometimes follows.
This is a collection about loss, and personal mistakes, and reconciling one’s self, and watching someone fall into then be consumed by addiction. It is a subtle love letter to San Francisco and to starting over. This is not a collection about the beauty of language or the tricks and twists that English can produce. It is straightforward and brutally honest. Kunz plays with the function of meaning that comes from streams of well chosen words.
I do wish I had a hard copy so I could see the form of these poems, the digital is constrained in ways that limits that part of the delivery. However, the power of each poem was in itself enough to make me fall in love. This is a book I will add to my own collection when it is released on August 22, 2023.
Usually CIS white male poetry doesn’t connect with me… however this somewhat gritty collection had me rapt, I read and reread this #BiteSizedBook over and over. Maybe it’s just the themes that hit home for me. I lost my brother to addiction and Kunz’s poems on the loss of his father and what it was like to enter the place his father passed away made me feel connected to the author. A shared experience that was visceral and sad without the melancholy or glorification of the dead that sometimes follows.
This is a collection about loss, and personal mistakes, and reconciling one’s self, and watching someone fall into then be consumed by addiction. It is a subtle love letter to San Francisco and to starting over. This is not a collection about the beauty of language or the tricks and twists that English can produce. It is straightforward and brutally honest. Kunz plays with the function of meaning that comes from streams of well chosen words.
I do wish I had a hard copy so I could see the form of these poems, the digital is constrained in ways that limits that part of the delivery. However, the power of each poem was in itself enough to make me fall in love. This is a book I will add to my own collection when it is released on August 22, 2023.
June 26, 2023
Was like I was reading a rap not much rhyming
Read
September 18, 2023An excellent follow-up to ‘Tap Out’, engages new themes and images, absolutely moving and fantastic.
April 16, 2023
In honor of #nationalpoetrymonth I’m trying to read some extra poetry. #Fixer by #EdgarKunz is what I read today. His style is what I’d call #autobiographical. Some would say, isn’t all poetry? But no, often the autobiographical is more subtle, or given to more lyrical style. This makes this poetry not exactly what I normally enjoy but close to it. It’s more matter of fact than plaintive or wistful. I don’t sense much nostalgia or pain but I enjoyed hearing these experiences and did especially enjoy #GoldenGate.
I also appreciated that the publisher @eccobooks gave a head’s up indicating that poetry e-books might break at places the poet didn’t intend which can cause the poem to lose its structure and hence it’s meaning or punch. There was a little of that also (in my opinion) but when reading poetry this often occurs - my sophomoric need to reread the lines or stanzas so that the finished thought can bring itself to a period in my mind. This book deals heavily on the fact of his father’s death. Several poems speak of his father and his death, some bleak things told very plainly but still in a way that packs a punch.
Many thanks to the publisher and to @netgalley for providing this collection in return for a honest review. Coming in August 2023.
#poetry #poemsofinstagram #eccobooks #poetrymonth
I also appreciated that the publisher @eccobooks gave a head’s up indicating that poetry e-books might break at places the poet didn’t intend which can cause the poem to lose its structure and hence it’s meaning or punch. There was a little of that also (in my opinion) but when reading poetry this often occurs - my sophomoric need to reread the lines or stanzas so that the finished thought can bring itself to a period in my mind. This book deals heavily on the fact of his father’s death. Several poems speak of his father and his death, some bleak things told very plainly but still in a way that packs a punch.
Many thanks to the publisher and to @netgalley for providing this collection in return for a honest review. Coming in August 2023.
#poetry #poemsofinstagram #eccobooks #poetrymonth
May 4, 2024
I met a woman once
who worked on pianos.
Said it was a hard job.
The tools, the leverage.
The required ear. I love it,
she said, but it's brutal.
The second I step away
it's already falling out of tune.
-- "Fixer"
who worked on pianos.
Said it was a hard job.
The tools, the leverage.
The required ear. I love it,
she said, but it's brutal.
The second I step away
it's already falling out of tune.
-- "Fixer"
I wanted to show you where for
a while he lived and how and you
slung your arm around my waist
and we moved slowly together bare
fluorescent bulb shining
on the Budweiser ashtray
the carpentry tools I would
inherit the ratty couch he crashed
on for years you held up
an old calypso record he loved
and sang out softly Jump in the line
rock your body in time and I
sang back softly Okay I believe you
and after a while mom at the top
of the stairs shouting What
are you kids doing down there
and climbing the steps you pinch
my elbow and ask if I'm
okay and I hear myself
say yes which is not a lie though
I'm not listening I'm letting
myself feel how astonishing how
astonishing what our love can make
of a place like that
-- "Night Heron"
December 27, 2023
A collection of poems about identity, the Midwest, loss, grief, an alcoholic father, and survival.
from Day Moon: "I thought / of my friend who wrote a novel over // a long winter in Nova Scotia / read it once and buried it in the copse // of birches behind the house he chose / the spot he said for its plainness // so he couldn't remember later / and dig it up"
from Fixer: "Waded through / the cans and bedding. Left it open // for the smell. Tried not to look / at the stain. Tried to be respectful // like in a museum."
from New Year: "A new year and not much / to show for it except a sore / lower back, an addiction // to trash TV and Russian novels / on tape—I stopped reading / the news, stopped calling home."
from Day Moon: "I thought / of my friend who wrote a novel over // a long winter in Nova Scotia / read it once and buried it in the copse // of birches behind the house he chose / the spot he said for its plainness // so he couldn't remember later / and dig it up"
from Fixer: "Waded through / the cans and bedding. Left it open // for the smell. Tried not to look / at the stain. Tried to be respectful // like in a museum."
from New Year: "A new year and not much / to show for it except a sore / lower back, an addiction // to trash TV and Russian novels / on tape—I stopped reading / the news, stopped calling home."
June 30, 2023
**Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco publishing for the eARC of this collection**
I absolutely adored this collection and loved how everything flowed together so well. Edgar Kunz explores the banality of everyday life, but does it in such a way that I felt myself longing for quiet days with nothing at all to pass the time.
I felt this one to my core, and especially enjoyed the poems that highlighted the togetherness that we feel with someone when we are just living the every day alongside them.
Check this one out if you like cohesive collections that make you appreciate day to day life!
I absolutely adored this collection and loved how everything flowed together so well. Edgar Kunz explores the banality of everyday life, but does it in such a way that I felt myself longing for quiet days with nothing at all to pass the time.
I felt this one to my core, and especially enjoyed the poems that highlighted the togetherness that we feel with someone when we are just living the every day alongside them.
Check this one out if you like cohesive collections that make you appreciate day to day life!
July 24, 2023
ARC given by NetGalley for Honest Review
Kunz intermingles melancholy and romance in this short collection of poetry. It was a quick and enjoyable read! This collection focuses on love, grief, and the mundanity of every day; Kunz takes each and puts it under a microscope to see what they are made of. Poetry fans who are looking for soft and honest writing will enjoy this title.
My favorite poems are: "Account", "Willrobotstakemyjob.com", and "Therapy."
Kunz intermingles melancholy and romance in this short collection of poetry. It was a quick and enjoyable read! This collection focuses on love, grief, and the mundanity of every day; Kunz takes each and puts it under a microscope to see what they are made of. Poetry fans who are looking for soft and honest writing will enjoy this title.
My favorite poems are: "Account", "Willrobotstakemyjob.com", and "Therapy."
October 7, 2023
“and climbing the steps you pinch my elbow and ask if I’m okay and I hear myself say yes which is not a lie though I’m not listening I’m letting myself feel how astonishing how astonishing what our love can make of a place like that”
I’m a poetry idiot, but I really liked this collection. It felt plain and direct in a really beautiful way—there were possibilities and words unsaid at the margins of each poem. It made me think: wow, maybe I can appreciate poetry.
I’m a poetry idiot, but I really liked this collection. It felt plain and direct in a really beautiful way—there were possibilities and words unsaid at the margins of each poem. It made me think: wow, maybe I can appreciate poetry.
September 16, 2024
I’m not sure what to make
of these poems their mundane
observations of modernity
couplet encapsulations
of a postmodern world
US capitalism in decline
American dreams rotting
like minds addicted to trash TV
yet anyone who reads Russian
novels in this day and age
reclaims his father’s remains
gives love a trellis to climb
is lit like a Zippo but these poems
read like smoke in my hands.
Favorite Poems:
“Account”
“Real Money”
“Fixer”
“Night Heron”
of these poems their mundane
observations of modernity
couplet encapsulations
of a postmodern world
US capitalism in decline
American dreams rotting
like minds addicted to trash TV
yet anyone who reads Russian
novels in this day and age
reclaims his father’s remains
gives love a trellis to climb
is lit like a Zippo but these poems
read like smoke in my hands.
Favorite Poems:
“Account”
“Real Money”
“Fixer”
“Night Heron”
January 6, 2025
Brilliant, cohesive, lovely, accurately described as "A masterpiece." If I were a poet, this is exactly the book I would wish I'd have written. So insanely good! Read it, read it again, then really read it. You're welcome. (Oh, and then read Tap Out: Poems too. So shatteringly good!)
May 2, 2023
Absolutely loved this collection!
It’s about loss, addiction, personal mistakes (being human) and coming to terms with who you are. Edgar Kunz is brutally honest and it feels like no word is wasted.
I would love to have a hard copy of this book, so that I could annotate it!
Thank you to the publisher (Ecco) for kindly providing me with an ARC!
It’s about loss, addiction, personal mistakes (being human) and coming to terms with who you are. Edgar Kunz is brutally honest and it feels like no word is wasted.
I would love to have a hard copy of this book, so that I could annotate it!
Thank you to the publisher (Ecco) for kindly providing me with an ARC!
June 14, 2023
I received a digital copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
"I set my screen / to black-and-white to make/ the living world more vivid."
Fixer places the mundane activities of life underneath a microscope, chronicling the effects of the author's father's death as well as complaints from fellow tenants all with brief, flickering beauty. Underneath the deceptively simple prose lie greater revelations about grief, family, and class, penned both honestly and tenderly. Despite the tragedy of loss hanging over many of the poems, the collection is ultimately hopeful, as in "Missing It", Kunz begins with the line "It's a new life". Regardless of the pain, there is eventual growth, and brightness in life's less glamorous moments.
"We haul the ladder / to the next window and / try again."
"I set my screen / to black-and-white to make/ the living world more vivid."
Fixer places the mundane activities of life underneath a microscope, chronicling the effects of the author's father's death as well as complaints from fellow tenants all with brief, flickering beauty. Underneath the deceptively simple prose lie greater revelations about grief, family, and class, penned both honestly and tenderly. Despite the tragedy of loss hanging over many of the poems, the collection is ultimately hopeful, as in "Missing It", Kunz begins with the line "It's a new life". Regardless of the pain, there is eventual growth, and brightness in life's less glamorous moments.
"We haul the ladder / to the next window and / try again."
July 28, 2023
I read this as an E-ARC thanks to NetGalley.
I understand poetry is not meant to resound with everyone and unfortunately, I am one of those people in this instance. I found that I couldn't connect to the poems however this does not take away the fact that Edgar gave a part of himself to this book and It was greatly written - I just couldn't relate to the content which falls 100% on me.
I understand poetry is not meant to resound with everyone and unfortunately, I am one of those people in this instance. I found that I couldn't connect to the poems however this does not take away the fact that Edgar gave a part of himself to this book and It was greatly written - I just couldn't relate to the content which falls 100% on me.
January 24, 2024
I like this poet’s very wry, observational style, that can be used for both experiential poems that feel more like interesting diary entries and heart-wrending meditations on grief. The best poems in this collection are about the death of the poet’s dad, with the titular poem (“Fixer”) the clear standout.
April 25, 2023
This is a very well written thought provoking book. I highly recommend it to poetry aficionados and all readers alike. I don't do spoilers and I say again 5 Stars all the way to my "favorites " pile. Lol. Enjoy it.
April 15, 2025
i’m biased because i liked tap out SO much more and i read it first. i’m a slut for formatting aswell and my pressing was nasty to read. edgar kunz your prose will continue to shake me time and time again. much love king
September 5, 2025
I don't read enough poetry.
This book made me sad. From being young, underemployed, and poor; to emptying out the home of a father who died alone and poor, the experiences described on these poems are bleak.
This book made me sad. From being young, underemployed, and poor; to emptying out the home of a father who died alone and poor, the experiences described on these poems are bleak.
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