“[These poems are] buzzing, stinging plunges into the complicated colony of self. . . . [Flynn’s] songs of experience hum with immediacy.”—The New York Times
Poem Excerpt
. . . the take from his bank jobs, all of it
will come to me, if I can just get him to draw me
a map, if I can find the tree, if I can find
the shovel. And the house, the mansion he
grew up in, soon a lawyer will pass
a key across a walnut desk, but even this
lawyer will not be able to tell me where this
mansion is.
—from “Kafka”
Body
In My Feelings, the author makes no claims on anyone else’s. These poems inhabit a continually shifting sense of selfhood, in the attempt to contain quicksilver realms of emotional energy—from grief and panic to gratitude and understanding.
The daring and intimate new book by poet and memoirist Nick Flynn, “a champion of contemporary American poetry” (NewPages)
About the Author
Credit: Ryan McGinley
Nick Flynn is the author of four poetry books, including I Will Destroy You, My Feelings, and Some Ether, which won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, and three memoirs, including Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. He teaches at the University of Houston and lives in New York. http://www.nickflynn.org/
“My Feelings offers no easy answers, yet the writing and the desire for transcendence make the journey compelling.”—The Washington Post
“Flynn’s collection reminds us that feelings come from somewhere, often dark places, and they are not self-indulgent or gratuitous, but essential.”—Houston Chronicle
“Flynn’s savage lines and elegantly unraveling syntax reconcile the personal, the cultural, and the unbearable with the vital, redemptive power of pain.”—Interview Magazine
“My Feelings overflows with grief, terror, anguish, guilt, and desire . . . stemmed by the levees of Flynn’s lean, precise, often uncapitalized and understated lines.”—Virginia Quarterly Review