Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018

Daniel Borzutzky is the author of several poetry collections, including The Book of Interfering Bodies; In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy; The Performance of Becoming Human, winner of the 2016 National Book Award; and Lake Michigan, a finalist for the 2019 Griffin International Poetry Prize. His translation of Galo Ghigliotto’s Valdivia received the National Translation Award. He has also translated books by Chilean poets Raúl Zurita and Jaime Luis Huenún. He teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Praise for Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018A Chicago Review of Books Must-Read Books for March 2021“An urgently contemporary project, rejecting the pretense of retrospective distance in order to mourn from within chaos.” —Hannah Aizenman, The New Yorker“A panoramic and formally various investigation of the evils of capitalism, imperialism, and white supremacy. . . . Borzutzky’s arresting writing sings and stuns as it addresses difficult, painful truths.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review“The poet’s voice has echoes of Waldman and Olson. The poems are at times conversational and incantatory. . . . critical and ambitious, most damning in its understatement and reflection.” —Joseph Houlihan, Chicago Review of Books“A broken god of a book. . . . These are not just poems of compelling witness, but unimaginable, unforgettable songs of grief.” —Paul Cunningham, Action Books“Stunning. . . . Global capitalist ironies become punchlines but also give way to protests, from Chile to Chicago and beyond.” —Urayoán Noel, The Latinx Project“The imagery is clear and direct. . . . The simple—but not simplistic—writing, pulls you in.” —David Rullo, Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle“Sprawling in its rage, from the concentration camps at the border to police violence to the scourge of mass shootings, this collection uses language to identify the unspeakable.” —Chicago Review of Books“Borzutzky reminds us that poetry is and has long been a tool of reckoning and refusal, a way of singing for what has been stolen, slaughtered, stifled. These are the songs we must learn to sing.” —Tracy K. Smith“Among these pages, emotional and spiritual selves gather to find cadence in perspective. Borzutzky offers us a testament to the written breath—to hear poetry’s fault line, running through each of us.” —Edwin Torres“I can’t do anything but bow. This is lacerating work.” —Achy Obejas