So Much Synth

So Much Synth

<div><p>"Shaughnessy's particular genius . . . is utterly poetic, but essayistic in scope."—<I>The New Yorker</I></p><p>"Brenda Shaughnessy's work is a good place to start for any passionate woman feeling daunted by poetry." —<I>Cosmopolitan</I></p><p>"Shaughnessy's voice is smart, sexy, self-aware, hip . . . consistently wry, and ever savvy."—<I>Harvard Review</I></p><p>Subversions of idiom and cliché punctuate Shaughnessy's fourth collection as she approaches middle age and revisits the memories, romances, and music of adolescence. <I>So Much Synth </I>is a brave and ferocious collection composed of equal parts femininity, pain, pleasure, and synthesizer. While Shaughnessy tenderly winces at her youthful excesses, we humbly catch glimpses of our own.</p><p><B>From "Never Ever":</B></p><p><I>Late is a synonym for dead which is a euphemism<BR>for ever. Ever is a double-edged word,</I></p><p><I>at once itself and its own opposite: always<br>and always some other time. </I></p><p><I>In the category of cleave, then. To cut and to cling to,<br>somewhat mournfully…</I></p><p><B>Brenda Shaughnessy </B>was born in Okinawa, Japan and grew up in Southern California. She is the author of three books of poetry, including <I>Human Dark with Sugar</I>, winner of the James Laughlin Award and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and <I>Our Andromeda</I>, which was a <I>New York Times Book Review </I>"100 Notable Books of 2013." She is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.</p></div>