Benjamin Schmitt’s latest poetry collection is really two quite different books: a witty political/social satire of 21st century United States wrapped around a lush center of lyric poems filled with understanding and affection for the places and people inhabiting that country. Despite the humor, this is a real dystopia wending its way toward totalitarianism. Schmitt doesn’t name names but there’s a man “who audaciously believes / we’re not racist enough to vote against him,” and another who strode down a “golden escalator,” promising “a world that only he could bring back.”
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