Bad Summon

Philip Schaefer is the author of three chapbooks, two cowritten with friend and poet Jeff Whitney. He won the Meridian Editor’s Prize in poetry in 2016. He received his MFA from the University of Montana in Missoula.

“What ultimately settled this for me was the constant surprise these poems offered, the degree of invention, and the quality of a new voice and original music. Bad Summon is relatively more interior, more intimate and isolate, and yet it is also fully connective. This is sheer poetry.”—David Baker, author of Never-Ending Birds"Philip Schaefer’s debut collection is a workhorse of a book turned unbridled wild-eyed mustang. The scope and shape of these poems are so vast and specific and heart-filled the page seems to bleed. I’m consistently surprised by the amount of leverage this poet is able to pull from the simplest phrase, the lyric made urgent and ravaged and strange. This book is both unlocatable and immediately recognizable. When he writes 'I want to tattoo your imagination onto my lungs' my footing was stable, it was just my breath that was taken away. Read this book."—Sam Sax, author of Madness