Class consciousness and contradictions percolate throughout Colin Pope’s third collection. Highly personal, these poems acknowledge the damage wrought on underprivileged populations while celebrating a working-class background. Dishwasher, delivery guy, ne’er-do-well, paper boy—the characters who populate this volume are caught within societally imposed definitions; infused with dignity, humanity, and compassion, Losers thumbs its nose at other folks’ labels. A celebration of postindustrial, rural America, this book is a paean to anyone thought undesirable and highlights the advantages (and disadvantages) imposed by geography, beauty, status, wealth, and opportunity.

I.
Spitting Off the Overpass in December
My Entire Youth Was Reaching Toward a Simile
On the Various Disciplines of Losers
The Ways They Die in Saranac Lake
First Gun
Throwing Stray Nails into Traffic
Seventeen Years by the Saranac River
The First Day After Graduation
Drunk and Living
Telling a Friend What My Father Did to Me
Lightning Bug

II.
Funeral Rights of the Greater Mammals
The Most Interesting Thing About Head Lice
Learning to Dress a Doe
How to Live with It
The Ways Boys Find Pleasure
Confession
Because I Didn’t Know What Affection Meant Between Two Men
Scanner
Flavor Country
A History of Mirrors
Trailer Trash

III.
You’re Supposed to Enjoy Dying
Shit
Empathy
After Flying into an Internal Rage at the People Who’ve Chosen
         to Occupy the Table Closest to Mine When the Entire Fucking Café
         Is Otherwise Empty, I Consider Various Atrocities
Looking the Wrong Way at the Ocean
Playhouse
A Life Sentence
Hand Gestures I Make in the Mirror to See if I Belong Anywhere
Delivering Flowers
Oh, Yes

Acknowledgments