Begin Anywhere
Frank Giampietro
A beleaguered, appealing self-as-persona wades through the crowded, messy rooms of adulthood in this unpredictable debut. Tension between the alluring promise of contemporary American suburbia and the high anxiety of a born second-guesser characterize this funny, self-deprecating, and frank portrayal of fatherhood, marriage, and personal transformation, as the speaker’s definition of happiness evolves.
"Frank Giampietro's poems speak to our American lives—the woe of commercialism, the heartbreak of suburbia, and the exquisite complexities of family. Within his breakneck hilarity, there is always some nod toward our own fleshy mortality, a small sigh of death. Giampietro's unique brand of genius makes the world more glorious, uproarious, and lonesomely true."
—Julianna Baggott
"The lines in these wise, funny, often startlingly sad poems nudge and jostle each other coltishly, and no wonder: they are the foals of Head and Heart, two mighty steeds to draw the reader’s chariot out of the well-trodden way and straight to poetry’s palace of gold, its realm of the blesséd."
—David Kirby
"Giampietro spends some quality time here interrogating his own appealingly quixotic soul. And like the best performance artists, this dissection implicates his audience, asking us to thoroughly consider what it means to be a friend, lover or parent. Giampietro constructs these questions with exceptional heart and verbal glamour. I love this book. It puts the human back in being." "
—Erin Belieu
about the author
Frank Giampietro earned his MFA from Vermont College. He is the founding editor of lafovea.org, and his poems, book reviews, and nonfiction have appeared in journals such as 32 Poems, Columbia Poetry Review, CutBank, Exquisite Corpse, Fence, Hayden's Ferry, and Rain Taxi. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida with his wife and two children.
Author photo by Laura Ciociola
two poems from begin anywhere
electronic press kit (pdf file)
