Tell Me

Finalist, 2000 National Book Award for Poetry

In this new collection by the author of Jimmy & Rita and The Philosopher's Club, Kim Addonizio takes the grist of the world and transforms it into poems of transcendent beauty. Tell Me examines the ties that bind us to those we love - whether parents, siblings, children, friends, lovers or ex-lovers - in rhythm-driven verse, traditional forms and prose poems. The dual themes of love and loss recur throughout this collection in poems that ultimately push toward redemption, saved from despair by Addonizio's keen eye and wise observations about the complexities of relationships.  "This is a stunning book. Its honesty and self-knowledge will pierce you to the core. Addonizio writes of herself, her passions and predicaments without ever seeming 'confessional' or narcissistic, because what she relates is true of all mankind--especially womankind." —Carolyn Kizer " Many of the poems in Tell Me can be read as intensified versions of the barroom ballad--songs of good and bad love, songs of the allure and the failure of drink. But regardless of the subject, Kim Addonizio's poems are stark mirrors of self-examination, and she looks into them without blinking." -Billy Collins  

Mermaid Song

                        for Aya at fifteen

Damp-haired from the bath, you drape yourself
upside down across the sofa, reading,
one hand idly sunk into a bowl
of crackers, goldfish with smiles stamped on.
I think they are growing gills, swimming
up the sweet air to reach you.  Small girl,
my slim miracle, they multiply.
In the black hours when I lie sleepless,
near drowning, dread-heavy, your face
is the bright lure I look for, love's hook
piercing me, hauling me cleanly up.

© BOA Editions, Ltd 2000 BOA

Available editions:
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Paperback ISBN: 1-880238-91-8
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: July 2000