Imperial Bender by Amanda Smeltz
Imperial Bender by Amanda Smeltz, graduate, the MFA in Creative Writing at The New School.
Typecast Publishing, 2013
“Smeltz flexes her muscles in a debut collection as notable for its sonnet crowns and classical rhymes as it is for its sense of post-industrial burnout and irresistible swagger. ‘About breasts the west has plenty to say./ This poem is the tits./ This poem’s Marilyn Monroe,’ she claims in ‘Crown for a Natural Disaster,’ before continuing, as though apologizing for her own grandeur and ability, ‘This poem of panache/ is a gateau topped with too much ganache.’ The poems are hurled at the reader one after another, their own eclectic forms providing the collection’s space and shape.” —Publisher’s Weekly