TIPS TO HELP YOU DO YOUR BEST
More than 20 years after his stunning debut collection, Cement Guitar, Carlson comes back to us with his wry humor, his radical yet subtle technical experimentation, his marvelous weirdness and wit. These are poems that embrace the problematics of living itself, and simultaneously create something new with the beloved, hallowed form of poetry. It’s the most exciting book of poetry I’ve read in years and years.
— Jan Heller Levi
Mike Carlson is a poet of presence—with one foot lodged firmly against the door of inevitable loss. To be inside a mind like this, with its subversive wit and idiosyncratic observations, is quite the ride. You don’t walk down the street in the same way after you’ve read Tips to Help You Do Your Best.
— Donna Masini
Carlson’s voice is a genial mixture of student and teacher. Which is to say, he knows things, but can’t stop stumbling into wonder. Carlson’s mind moves so surprisingly you’ll shake your head. And the way he ends his poems is often shockingly like a head fake at the goal line: unexpected, perhaps not totally necessary, and absolutely awesome.”
— Matthew Rohrer
