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 Andrew Michael Roberts
Give Up
Chapbook. Poetry.
5.5" x 7", saddle-sewn, 32 pages
December, 2006
- click here for more images of the book
The prose poems in Give Up have gathered together as if trying
collectively to defy the book's title in their persistent search—at
times frantic, naïve, misdirected—for what's been forsaken or lost or
given foolishly away and by now is likely out of reach. These poems are
insatiable for what they won't allow themselves to have. They are
uncomfortable in their own skins. They grow quiet
in a crowd and slip to the corner to watch and see who wonders where
they've gone. These
poems meant well. They always wanted to be popular and courageous.
Better looking. Better endowed. They admire the guile of mystics and
pole-vaulters. They intended to learn kickboxing. They meant to ride
motorcycles. They meant to have their shit figured out by now.
from "Somebody":
Before I got hungry enough to go home I watched a train throw sparks, setting fire to the wheat fields as it passed. I think it’s true what they say—when you’re human you’re either creating or destroying. Nothing’s in-between. When I start to feel like somebody, I just imagine the smell of bread and burning birds and keep running.
About Andrew Michael Roberts
Andrew Michael Roberts grew up in Elma, Washington.
He now studies and teaches creative writing in Amherst,
Massachusetts, where he is a Juniper Fellow at the
University of Massachusetts. He is coordinator of the
UMass Visiting Writers Series and The Juniper Summer
Institute for Young Writers. His work appears in The
Iowa Review, LIT, Gulf Coast, Mississippi Review, Seattle
Review, Pilot, and Quick Fiction, among other journals.
Excerpts from Give Up:
Poems from Give Up may be found in New Millennium Writings, No. 16; Quick Fiction No. 9 (where "Almost Anything" is reproduced online); The Literary Review Vol. 49 No. 3; Cairn 39; Gulf Coast, and online at Pilot.
Readings & events for Andrew Michael Roberts and Give Up
upcoming . . .
past . . .
May 16, 2007: South Hadley, MA
Dan Chelotti, Elizabeth
Hughey, & Andrew Michael Roberts
7PM @ Odyssey BookShop
Village Commons
9 College St.
February 16, 2007: Amherst, MA
Andrew Michael Roberts & Seth Parker
8 PM @ Amherst Books
8 Main Street
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