American Fanatics

Dorothy Barresi is the author of four previous books of poetry: American Fanatics; Rouge Pulp; The Post-Rapture Diner, winner of an American Book Award; and All of the Above, winner of the Barnard New Women Poets Prize. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council. She is professor of English and creative writing at California State University, Northridge.

"American Fanatics is driven by a diction that is electrifyingly alive with the idiosyncratic pulse of our strange particular historical moment that includes pet dogs slaughtered by coyotes, mystical Vietnamese nail salon workers, and ephebiphobiacs wandering our sunny streets, these poems enchant and inspire. Part hip metaphysician, part late corrupted dharma bum, Dorothy Barresi is also Simic- or Marquez-like in her regard for the world, which allows her to evoke a magically realistic panorama that comes to resemble, as we make our way through this wonderful book, our own entropic world. I haven't been this excited and optimistic about the state of American poetry in a long time, and I can't wait for you to read this book."