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Book Title

Regaining Unconsciousness

Subtitle
Poems
Author 1
Harryette Mullen
Poem Excerpt

As you plan your last meal, chunks of ancient glaciers are ice cubes melting in a bowl of steaming broth. If, in a season of superlatives, you survive the hottest month on record in the hottest summer of the hottest year in the hottest decade ever, you’ll want a cold shower and a sip of chilled champagne.

—from “Hotter Than July”

Body
Harryette Mullen is one of contemporary poetry’s most influential voices, for her inventive language play, keen wit, formal experimentation, and pointed critique of American culture. In Regaining Unconsciousness, her first new collection in twelve years, Mullen confronts the imminent dangers of our present to sound an alarm for our future, to wake us out of our complicity and despondency: Can we, even still, find our way to our unconscious selves, beyond our capacity to harm, subdue, and consume?
 
In eleven taut sections written in the eleventh hour of our collective being, these poems address climate change, corporate greed, racist violence, artificial intelligence, the pollution of our oceans, individualism at the cost of mutual wellness, and the consequences of not addressing these pressing issues. Mullen imagines, as we must, our apocalypse, and yet, in an astounding feat, she does so with playfulness and wry referentiality that make these poems surprisingly buoyant, funny, and readable. Our end may be inevitable, Mullen admits, but maybe we begin with gratitude.

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List Price
$17.00
ISBN
ISBN
978-1-64445-349-0
Format
Format
Paperback
Publication Date
Publication Date
Subject
Subject
Pages
Pages
128
Trim Size
Trim Size
6 x 9
Keynote
Only legendary poet Harryette Mullen could make a book of our time’s dire crises this much fun to read

About the Author

Harryette  Mullen
Harryette Mullen is the author of eight books of poetry, including Urban Tumbleweed, Recyclopedia, and Sleeping with the Dictionary, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of California–Los Angeles.
 
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