Crushing It

Jennifer L. Knox

The poems in Jennifer Knox’s darkly imaginative collection, Crushing It, unearth epiphanies in an unbounded landscape of forms, voices and subjects―from history to true crime to epidemiology―while exploring our tenuous connections and disconnections. From Merle Haggard lifting his head from a pile of cocaine to absurdist romps through an apocalypse where mushrooms learn to sing, this versatile collection is brimming with dark humor and bright surprise. Alongside Knox’s distinctive surrealism, Crushing It also reveals autobiography in poems about love, family, and adult ADHD, and Knox’s empathetic depictions of the ego’s need to assert its precious, singular “I” suggest that a self distinct from the hive, the herd, the flock, is an illusion. With clear-eyed spirit, Crushing It swallows all the world, and then some.

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ISBN: 9781556595868

Format: Paperback

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The Gift

You can tell whether a bird has a mate
if there are pinfeathers on its head, new feathers
that start out as stubs full of blood, then enshroud
themselves in a white, scaly coat as they grow.
Preening releases the feather, but a bird can’t reach
the top of its own head. A mate preens that spot
unless the bird is alone in a cage. Pinfeathers itch,
so I preen my unpaired birds: wrap them in a towel,
scritch their heads and blow till dandruffy stuff
flutters out. They looked pretty mangy this morning,
I recall, as I stare at the side of my mother’s face
from the backseat. How long has it been since I
took her in for a haircut? And her whiskers—she can’t
see to shave. We’re driving back roads, pointing out
deer and hawks as she ahs, before taking her back
to her apartment. Collin calls it “traveling gravel.”
She loves it when he drives and I sit in the back
so she can talk as much as she wants. He always
answers her questions. Sometimes I’ll go hours
without saying a word while she talks and talks.
When I was little, she’d bring a book to restaurants
and read while I, no doubt, talked and talked. Things
children said weren’t interesting to her, she told me,
and family never had to say, “I’m sorry.” Yes,
we’ve hurt each other, but only I’ve done it
on purpose. Did I tell you she bought me this car?
It’s the most generous gift I’ve ever received.

About the Author

Jennifer L. Knox is the author of four books of poems: Days of Shame & Failure (Bloof Books, 2015), The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway (Bloof, 2010), Drunk by Noon (Bloof, 2007), and A Gringo Like Me (Soft Skull Press, 2005, Bloof, 2007). Known for their dark, imaginative humor, her poems have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Granta, McSweeney’s, four times in the Best American Poetry series, and the 2022 Pushcart Prize: Best …

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Reviews

“Darkly inventive… This is a careful, thoughtful book about the complexities of identity and the difficulty of words.” —Publishers Weekly

“Knox’s poems traverse space and time to bring us a collection of poems which are both expansive and surreal as well as intimately autobiographical… The collection’s surrealist turns and twists allow Knox to explore not only the consequences of our choices, but a range of landscapes, individuals, and subject matters with her assertive and daring voice that makes for a fascinating read.” —The Arkansas International

“Knox crafts a poetic universe of friction, farce, and alarming revelation… Many of the poems are, quite literally, laugh out loud funny… Though Crushing It can be morbid, disturbing, and unreal, Knox ultimately grounds us in the knowledge that veins of tenderness and compassion run underneath it all.” —Lunate

“From the very first imagistic pleasure—a prehistoric conifer tree breaking through an icy lake, reaching a startling height, then falling as swiftly as it rose—Knox’s new collection brims with surprise… Self-deprecating, dry humor, combined
with Knox’s wide-ranging imagination makes Crushing It difficult to put down.”—Women’s Review of Books

“Knox’s new poetry collection Crushing It is hilarious, disturbing, touching and more than occasionally profane.” —Iowa Public Radio

“What if… one discovered that the self is no refuge from the absurdity of the world, and that what we imagined as as an island of sense and coherence was chock full of contradiction and nonsense? What would a poetry that took this seriously look and sound like? I think it would look and sound like the poetry of Jennifer L. Knox.”—On the Seawall