Poetry. Smart and funny, gorgeous and frightened. Whether at the racetrack or in the cul-de-sac. Asking questions of the flawed self or of the idyllic, these poems look headlong at the living world and use all of it. The poems are winding and discursive but also include short, eye-rolling lyrics. Dinner party politics join with lines from Hass, the Bible, and the memory of Detroit (Jericho Brown). Characters in Seyburn's poems do what we all do, only with the skepticism of Plato (Alan Michael Parker).

Patty Seyburn has published four books of poems, PERFECTA (What Books, 2014), HILARITY (New Issues Press, 2009), Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002), and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998). She teaches at California State University, Long Beach, and co-edits POOL: A JOURNAL OF POETRY.