Exit Opera: Poems - Kim Addonizio

nSet in locations from dive bars to Montparnasse Cemetery, from an ancient Greek temple to a tourist shop in Assisi, Exit Opera explores the ever-vexing issues of time, mortality, love, and loss, and considers the roles of art and human connection. Whatever their nominal subject--jazz, zombies, Buddhism, Siberian tigers--these poems make for a compelling mix of humor and pain, difficulty and solace. In a nod to Keats, one of the many fellow travelers in these poems, Addonizio invites us to [inscribe] a few verses on whatever water / you can find and assures readers that they are not alone in navigating the challenges and changes of mortal life.

As she writes in My Opera n The staging is difficult. Exploding stars n are involved, high-redshift galaxies, interior chambers, n a little country blues, a little jazz guitar, a jam jar containing n a tiny ocean & a tinier rowboat rocking gently in the swells n that I am steering toward you in the dark. n n