Interrobang

by Jessica Piazza

Overview

Existing at the intersection of darkness and play, the noisy, irreverent, and self-conscious poems in Interrobang take clinical “phobias” and clinical “philias” as their conceit. Each poem makes its own music, the crescendos and decrescendos born of obsessions over anxiety and lust. Encompassing a range of forms (but mostly sonnets), each piece toes the line between traditional meter and contemporary sonic play, while a tell-tale heart beats beneath the floor of the collection, constantly reminding us of our shames, fears, and the clock’s unrelenting ticking. Through individual stories about love, degradation of the self, the redemptive power of genuine humility, and the refuge offered by art and language, Interrobang, winner of the 2012 A Room of Her Own Foundation To the Lighthouse Poetry Publication Prize, illustrates how even the worst-case scenario of these pathologies are, fundamentally, just extensions of the dark truths to which every one of us can relate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597097222
Publisher:	Red Hen Press
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	72
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Jessica Piazza was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has a BS in Journalism from Boston University, an MA in Creative Writing from the UT Austin, and is a PhD candidate in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. She co-founded Bat City Review and Gold Line Press, is a contributing editor at The Offending Adam, and has blogged for The Best American Poetry and Barrelhouse. Her work has appeared in Agni, Indiana Review, Mid-American Review, National Poetry Review, The Missouri Review, Rattle, Hobart, and Forklift, Ohio, among other journals. She is the winner of the 2011 A Room of Her Own Foundation To the Lighthouse Publication Prize. Interrobang is her first collection of poems.

Table of Contents

Melophobia: Fear of music 17

People Like Us 18

Asthenophobia: Fear of weakness 23

Lilapsophobia: Fear of tornadoes and hurricanes 24

Clithrophilia: Love of being enclosed 25

Automatonophilia: Love of things that falsely represent a sentient being 26

Achluophilia: Love of darkness 27

Anablephobia: Fear of looking up 28

Heresyphilia: Love of radical deviation 29

Atephilia: Love of ruin 30

Basiphilia: Love of falling 31

Xenoglossophobia: Fear of foreign languages 32

Kopophobia: Fear of fatigue 33

Phobophilia: Love of fear 34

Caligynephobia: Fear of a beautiful woman 35

Aerophobia: Fear of drafts or airborne noxious substances 36

Pediophilia: Love of dolls 37

Hierophilia: Love of sacred things 38

The Prolific 41

Thalassophilia: Love of the sea 46

Theophobia: Fear of God 47

Eisoptrophilia: Love of mirrors 48

Eisoptrophobia: Fear of mirrors 49

Eremophobia: Fear of loneliness or of being oneself 50

Ankylophobia: Fear of the immobility of a joint 51

Panophilia: Love of everything 52

Apodysophilia: Love of undressing 53

Patroiophobia: Fear of heredity 54

Apeirophilia: Love of infinity 56

Atomosophobia: Fear of atomic explosions 57

Pharmacophilia: Love of drugs 58

Nephophobia: Fear of clouds 59

Antlophobia: Fear of floods 60

Asymmetriphobia: Fear of asymmetrical things 61

Chionophilia: Love of snow 62

Erotophobia: Fear of sexual love 63

Kakorrhaphiophobia: Fear of failure 64

What I Hold 65

Editorial Reviews

Jessica Piazza’s brilliantly conceived debut collection, Interrobang, is a stunning sequence of (primarily) sonnets that unfolds with both a mature formal acuity and a profound philosophical sophistication. It is an absolute tour de force. These poems emerge as reflections of a kaleidoscopic self as they interrogate those fears and desires that drive and haunt us. Whatever the answers might be to these exclamatory questions, the speaker of these beautiful and troubling poems knows she has only one response available to her—to continue regardless, and to persevere.”
—David St. John 

“Jessica Piazza leaps fully-armed from the head (and heady tradition) of linguistic-trickster poets like Father Hopkins and Heather McHugh. Interrobang hits the ground running, lobbing bolts of syntactical lightning, taking the reader hostage to the most dazzling radical harmonies—a word-music that shakes us awake, powers new insights—stands us on the very edge of a rock ‘n’ roll minefield, waving a white flag. We give in! We got it! This is great poetry!”
—Carol Muske-Dukes 

“What an ear, here! Jessica Piazza’s poems are such etched, alive word sculptures, crystal prism poems of love and longing and punch.”
—Aimee Bender

“Jessica Piazza is an heir of Hopkins, a poet engaging generously in metaphysical struggle. In this unusually deft book, she sets out to offer her voice on the altar of iambic pentameter and shares the fears she encounters there with quirky, firm metrical dexterity and breathtakingly succinct wit. Interrobang is a serious accomplishment.”
—Annie Finch 

“Interrobang thrums gorgeously—each page is full-throated and sexy. It’s a yearning yo-yo, a gemlike cutting through our loves and fears. It is a book rabid with life. Piazza’s razor-sharp collection weaves and knots the unknowable with a jubilance and wit too rare in contemporary poetry. Interrobang is fantastic debut collection.”
—Alex Lemon, author of Happy: A Memoir and Fancy Beasts

“Many of these poems are brave and sensuous, and it’s refreshing to see Piazza capturing not so much her shifting emotions as her understanding of them…Promising work from a writer worth watching.”
 —Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

From the Publisher

09/15/2013
Winner of the 2011 A Room of Her Own Foundation Prize, this debut collection nicely fulfills the John Waters epigraph: "Without obsession, life is nothing." Piazza frames her poems as offbeat phobias and philias—e.g., "Anablephobia: Fear of looking up" and "Basiphilia: Love of falling"—to investigate intensive emotional states. These phobias/philias typically track back to something more personal or interpersonal—"Lilapsophobia: Fear of tornadoes and hurricanes" ends more intimately by observing, "No way/ to gauge you: wrath or pleasure"—and throughout, Piazza seems to be working through poetry for some sort of personal understanding, often expressed through pithy, punchy observations ("What wasn't there was never mine to lose,/ Empty: the promise. Empty: the noose"). Many of these poems are brave and sensuous (the narrator is hollering and tumbling here with a difficult lover), and it's refreshing to see Piazza capturing not so much her shifting emotions as her understanding of them: "It isn't whether. No. Only: how long until/ how bad it gets." Sometimes she packs in too much, and we get "Stubborn Brooklyn brownstones…/ skylighting the high-lit glow/ of street lamps," but then we're back to the beauty of the "fleeing, wing-beating heart." VERDICT Promising work from a writer worth watching.—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Library Journal