Distributed for Omnidawn Publishing, Inc.
The Police
“We are the coast of technology,” and Daniel Poppick’s debut tracks the signal coming in towards shore. Charged with an electric syntax, haunted by lyric history, and “gripped in gravity’s mood,” the poems in The Police ask: How do we navigate the miasma that we call a common language? And what is the clumsy, mythic force dictating our movement and relations? Who granted it this power? As Poppick endeavors to reconcile individual desire with the demands of a beloved collective, he finds a radical vulnerability lurking behind the curtain in the theater of friendship: the speech passing between us has a life of its own, the root of our tragicomedy and our only hope.
Table of Contents
PINK STONES I. TO ARRIVE WITH CARTOON DEVOTIONS “SUCKING THE SHERBETS, CROONING THE TUNES,” LIKE A FIRE THE CRICKETS GO ALL MAFIA INSIDE OF IDLE VEINS CONDUCTED IN GARDENS OF THE IDIOT BOY CATS PARADISE IN THE THIRD PERSON A NORTHIST APPETITE TECHNICIAN THE GRAVE OF HIERONYMUS HALFPENNY II. POOR JAMES THE CONSTANT PHRENOLOGY FONT DIARY III. ANTIBODY PAPYRUS FAIL NEST EDIT WHITES OUTLET CHAMPAGNE YEAR DANCING ON MY OWN COLLECTED ANTHEM SNEAKY FUME BONE MACHINE INDEPENDENCE DAY MANIFESTO POEM ENDING WITH THE SOUND OF CROOKS FROM THE SIGNAL TOWERS SNEAKY FREEZE A RUBBER LION DRAMATIS PERSONAE THE POLICE GLASS HORSE THE APPLE’S FLOOR RENT OUTLET CHAMPAGNE YEAR DANCING ON MY OWN IV. COLLECTED ANTHEM SNEAKY FUME BONE MACHINE INDEPENDENCE DAY MANIFESTO POEM ENDING WITH THE SOUND OF CROOKS FROM THE SIGNAL TOWERS SNEAKY FREEZE A RUBBER LION V. DRAMATIS PERSONAE THE POLICE GLASS HORSE * THE APPLE’S FLOOR