Walking Away from Explosions in Slow Motion

"Gregory Crosby’s poetry matches an extensive knowledge of literary form with a curator’s eye for the idiosyncrasies of our popular culture. He zooms in on familiar scenes of contemporary life – 'Lonely Starbucks Lovers,' 'Netflix & Chill.' He writes elegant elegies for David Bowie and Adam West. Here is a poet who is able to compose in the midst of chaos, refusing to resort to the easy narratives that make sense of it all. This allows his work to embrace a democratic range of experiences from the political to the banal. Crosby can’t help being engaged, often satiric, but always sincere; he wonders, 'How to say something to see something. / How to give voice to despair without/ giving in to despair.' Walking Away From Explosions in Slow Motion is a poetic survival manual – a guide for navigating a maze of contradictions. It’s a must read!" - Elaine Equi



Walking Away From Explosions in Slow Motion is just that—the thoughts that arise as you turn your back on whatever catastrophe of air and light is blossoming in your wake and press forward as best you can, the roar in your ears turning somehow into poetry. Among the shrapnel: time, mortality, culture, dead twins, funeral strippers, lonely Starbucks lovers, apocalyptic elections, ennui, extended plays, injustice, aubades, Pluto, sex, loneliness, Bowie, Batman, strange dreams, reading comics by flashlight, democracy in ruins, racism, hope, melancholy, masks, pierced tongues, lost souls, scarecrows, violence, love, American twilights & resistance, resistance, (nevertheless) resistance. Also a dog, barking in the distance.