Set in San Diego County in the aftermath of the stock market crash and global financial crisis of 2008, The End of America, Book 8 casts a sharp, often satirical eye at a time shaken by economic, environmental, and interpersonal danger. In this series of poems, language becomes as uncertain as everything else; descriptions of problems are very much part of the problem. Among the "wires crossed across the public / selling," can poetry really help anyone see their lives more clearly? In its skepticism, The End of America, Book 8 tries to find a way to still believe in that possibility.

Mark Wallace is the author and editor of a number of books of fiction, poetry, and essays. His most recent novel, Crab, was published in 2017 by Submodern Books. Other recent publications include a book-length prose poem, Notes from the Center on Public Policy, and a novel, The Quarry and The Lot. Temporary Worker Rides a Subway won the 2002 Gertrude Stein Poetry Award and was published by Green Integer Books. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and he has co-edited two essay collections, Telling It Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s, and A Poetics of Criticism.