Junk

Pico is the master of making the stone stony, of returning the sheer absurdity of being to everything, from grief to intimacy to dating apps to donuts. Junk insists on the urgency of the quotidian, of, to borrow a phrase from Pico, 'vibrant inconsequence.' It's rare to read a book that makes living feel so alive.--Kaveh Akbar, author of CALLING A WOLF A WOLF Tommy Pico's books are contemporary epics. He writes poetry of rare brilliance, assured in form and forceful in its interrogation of myth and cultural expectations and self.--Whiting Award Committee Build[s] into an apocalyptic crescendo via Pico's propulsive fervor . . . Pico demonstrates that a person's many selves, traumas, anxieties, hookups, and breakups can become a marker of courage and survival.--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review [Tommy Pico] writes poems that are complex yet accessible, that sound like 2018 but that have staying power long past it, in the same way that O'Hara's poems resonate long past their midcentury milieu. . . . Through Pico's lens, nothing is not worth our attention.--Los Angeles Review of Books [Pico] weaves pop culture and slang throughout his deep-rooted criticisms of US history and culture, wooing readers into a comfortable, if brief, moment of familiarity (see: Janet Jackson lyrics) so that the swift pivot to violence and heartache hits like a gut punch.--BuzzFeed A mash-up of humor, cutting-edge language, and shattered stereotypes, Pico's work paints a whole new portrait of queer identity . . . Truly incredible.--PrideLife