Deadlifts [Paperback]

What a brilliant concept: Deadlifts offers witty, lyrical verses, historically accurate and imaginative, in which poet Patricia Clark provides an insiders view of other 'Patricia Clarks'the dead ones. These poems are even more brilliant than the concept, their endings a surprise and a good shock. Heartening and perfectly tuned, like Arcade Fire or Stephen Colberts monologues, these poems are what we need nowand will return tofor a long time to come. ?Marilyn Kallet?

In Patricia Clarks Deadlifts, we cling to the speaker as she dives right into mortalitys maw, poring over obituaries of those who share her name. Theyre strangers, yes, but the connection Clark makes is powerful. Are we anything in death beyond our names? As Clark says, We are all the same, these lives/ bracketed by dates,/? these listswho/ preceded us, who remains.' Glenn Shaheen

These poems are masterfulthe way Clark tucks reverberating sounds from one line to the nextpain, thanks, facelike she tucks her namesakes into their graves. So gently and with so much love. Through the breath and ink of this author Patricia Clark, the Patricia Clarks that have gone on come back again. ?Nicole Walker