Man Suit

A circus of a poetry collection, this debut book from the editor of Octopus is a wild journey into the subconscious of the American dream. Love, whales, and William McKinley all pop up in these darkly comic poems.

Poetry. THE MAN SUIT, a darkly comic debut from poet Zachary Schomburg, assembles a macabre cast of doppelgangers, talking animals and dead presidents in poems that explore concepts of identity, truth and fate. The resulting body of work walks a dynamic line-often reading like anecdotal fables or cautionary tales in the form of prose poems. Through it all, Schomburg balances irony with sincerity; wit with candor; and a playful tone with the knowledge of inevitable sorrow. Publisher's Weekly writes, "The often funny yet haunting prose and verse poems of this eagerly anticipated debut deal with the subtle and unexpected ways things can transform, usually just beneath an observer's awareness. With similarly flippant but persistent gestures, Schomburg pushes at the boundaries of logic. He asks for a willing suspension of disbelief and of order.

Zachary Schomburg is the author of two books of poems, THE MAN SUIT (Black Ocean 2007) and SCARY, NO SCARY (Black Ocean 2009), and chapbooks including The Pond (Greying Ghost), I am a Small Boy (Factory Hollow), and Abraham Lincoln's Death Scene (Horseless Press). Forthcoming chapbooks include a collaboration with Emily Kendal Frey to be published in the fall of 2009 called Team Sad (Cinematheque Press) and translations from the Russian of Andrei Sen-Senkov to be published in 2010 called The Architect's Fly (Lightful Press). He co-edits Octopus Magazine and Octopus Books. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Publisher: Black Ocean
Distributor: Black Ocean
Publication Date: 03-01-2007
Pages: 105
Measurements: 6oz