And & And by Bob King

Agile and associative, Bob King’s long-awaited debut swirls with world-making energy. There’s no index, but everything you need is in here: Amur tigers, the afterlife, Cindy Lauper, Darwin, dismay, Hellenic star charts, sassafras, tiramisu, WD-40, wonder, you. I love the way King uses the ampersand, like a boson particle, to fully activate these poems, inviting us to find wisdom in the long view. And as with centripetal force, it’s the sheer hurtling that holds it all together — holds us together. Hold this book in your hand and feel it break your heart as it heals you, too.

–Dobby Gibson, author of Little Glass Planet, It Becomes You, Skirmish, & Polar.

I have loved and admired Bob King’s poems for decades. How lucky we are to have this outstanding first book here at last and somehow even better than I could have imagined. Count me as an enthusiastic cheerleader!

These poems are funny and playful, clever and wise, and full of momentum–poems that challenge us to be thoughtful about our time here on earth, our relationships with others, and with ourselves. Drawing from inspiration as varied as Charles Darwin, Radiolab, Chekhov, Edward Snowden, Douglas Adams, Man Ray, Murakami, Jurassic Park, Led Zeppelin, García Márquez, Caddyshack, and Gertrude Stein, this book speaks to us like a wise old friend and builds toward a beautiful, breathtaking closing poem.

It fills my heart to bursting to think of how much this book would have delighted our shared mentor, Dean Young.

–Chrissy Kolaya, author of Other Possible Lives: poems, Charmed Particles: a novel, and Any Anxious Body: poems.