Sophomore Slump

<p>Leigh Chadwick's prose poems are shockingly blunt and compulsively tender. They are dangerous confessions shot out of the cannon of her restless imagination and aimed straight at your heart. Don't blink.</p><p> -Steve Almond author of <em>All the Secrets of the World</em></p><p><em> </em><em>Sophomore Slump</em> is a kaleidoscopic versatile and transgressive work of art. These poems-no these glimpses into the heart-are full of irreverence and the practicality life needs to sustain itself. Unassumingly brilliant and funny <em>Sophomore Slump</em> is an indelible work from an unforgettable writer.</p><p> -Morgan Talty author of <em>Night of the Living Rez</em></p><p><em> </em>Hanging out with Leigh Chadwick's poetry collection <em>Sophomore Slump </em>is like bumping into a friend you haven't seen in a decade and picking up exactly where you left off. Maybe you and this friend have both listened to 'Debaser' by the Pixies for six weeks straight. Perhaps your 'dreams are nothing but a wall of owls' or you have stumbled upon 'a sundress lumped in dust and asphalt alone in the middle of Grand River Avenue.' Just when you think Chadwick's poems have reached the peak in their crescendo they keep climbing. Chadwick grabs the most dazzling grotesque tableaus of the subconscious then recasts them in the spirit of a music video worthy of a premium spot on <em>120 Minutes</em>.</p><p> -Mary Biddinger author of <em>Department of Elegy</em></p><p> Leigh Chadwick's <em>Sophomore Slump </em>is a seriously hilarious romp via prose poems. Chadwick uses the literary device of a lead singer in a band complete with hits demos and bonus tracks<em> </em>to wrap her mind around the folly of celebrity at a time of Earth's violence and peril i.e. <em>How many forest fires would it take to melt all the baby Jesuses in the world? </em>She is not afraid to meet our cultural moment head on with all the urgency it requires. Chadwick is constantly assessing sometimes farcically so-in 'Yelp Reviews of Past Loves'-and sometimes chillingly so in<em> </em>'A Comprehensive List of Places to Hide from a Bullet.' I couldn't help think of Harold Bloom's <em>Anxiety of Influence</em>-though Chadwick kicks Bloom and Freud to the curb. Her anxiety is not struggling to top her literary idols but instead hopes to top herself (which of course she does!).</p><p> -Denise Duhamel author of <em>Second Story</em></p>