American Lit by Jacob Minasian

I can’t think of a recent book of poems that has come from the midwest that feels more necessary to me than Jacob Minasian‘s American Lit  These poems have a quiet, bold, determined, confident intelligence, and a startling directness. They are the record of a person trying to make sense of the coasts where he has lived and traveled, and of his current home, the land of the Meijer superstore, of pastures and freeways and Ohio’s “metal wasteland … like some brutal aftermath.” After reading American Lit, I felt like I understood, or perhaps more important, had the opportunity to feel, at least part of the landscape and mood and politically charged and socially ambiguous and ambivalent spirit of the middle of the country. I am immensely grateful for this book, and for this essential new voice in American poetry. 

–Matthew Zapruder, author of Why Poetry and Father’s Day