Help Me, Information - by David Kirby

About the Book

""Help Me, Information" is propelled by the speed and motion of the poems that define earlier acclaimed books by David Kirby, poems which move the way the mind does on a good day, puddle-jumping from one topic to another and then coming in for a nice soft landing. The poem might bounce once or twice on the tarmac, but the pilot promised he would get you to the terminal safely, and he does. Colloquial in tone, balancing narrative breadth with masterfully precise details, Kirby's poems traverse subjects and emotions with great insight and skill. "Help Me, Information" reveals the amplitude of his imagination and mercurial voice reaching new heights in breadth of gesture, seriousness of subtext, and the resourcefulness of his comic instincts, as his poems display a voracious curiosity about history, science, literature, and popular culture. Yet here he also reinvents himself with poems that recall the directness of Jack Gilbert, the sweep of Allen Ginsberg, and the introspection of Frank O'Hara"--

Book Synopsis

Help Me, Information is propelled by the speed and motion of the poems that define earlier acclaimed books by David Kirby, poems that move the way the mind does on a good day, puddle-jumping from one topic to another and then coming in for a nice soft landing.

Colloquial in tone, balancing narrative breadth with precise detail, Kirby's poetry displays his voracious curiosity about history, science, literature, and popular culture. Yet here he also reinvents himself with poems that recall the compactness of Jack Gilbert, the sweep of Allen Ginsberg, and the introspection of Frank O'Hara.

Help Me, Information presents a fresh Kirby, familiar yet new.

Review Quotes

[Previous praise] Kirby . . . reminds me of the way a poem can work: how its language can say one thing and mean another, and how we can be moved by the musicality of words, finding meaning in their sound.-- "Natasha Trethewey, "New York Times""

[Previous praise] The world that Kirby takes into his imagination and the one that arises from it merge to become a creation like no other, something like the world we inhabit but funnier and more full of wonder and terror.-- "Philip Levine, "Ploughshares""

About the Author

David Kirby's collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for the National Book Award. His honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches English at Florida State University.