My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge: Poems

My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge is a fierce and original collection—its generosity of voice and emotional range announce the arrival of a major new poet.

At the age of twelve, Paul Guest suffered a bicycle accident that left him paralyzed for life. But out of sudden disaster evolved a fierce poetic sensibility—one that blossomed into a refuge for all the grief, fury, and wonder at life forever altered. Although its legacy lies in tragedy, the voice of these brilliant poems cuts a broad swath of emotions: whether he is lamenting the potentiality of physical experience or imagining the electric temptations of sexuality, Guest offers us a worldview that is unshakable in its humanity.

Publishers Weekly

Paralyzed in a bicycle accident at age 12, Guest as an adult has turned his serious anger, his irrepressible energies and his sex drive into an instantly recognizable and passionate style. This third collection (his first from a New York trade house) comes with a blog and the promise of a memoir, which should raise the profile of these poems. On the one hand, the zigzag free verse portrays the poet's frustrations, "twenty-one years/ into the telling of a poor joke,/ made of pain, nerves snuffed like wicks": "No music but smashed guitars/ would be enough." On the other, the poems race, churn and tumble over themselves with a welcome, often R-rated, power of invention. Guest (Notes for My Body Double) might be Percy Bysshe Shelley crossed with Nick Flynn, or Neruda fused with Dean Young, at once perpetually dissatisfied and breathless with anticipation. A poem called "Audio Commentary Track 1" brings in "stuporous public sex/ at skating rinks and professional wrestling matches," along with "lethally ascetic Canadian monks," then explains, "To me each convulsive sob sounds like joy." Guest's fast-paced, sometimes even offensive third volume could be a poetry hit. (Dec.)