I Deserve This, Thank You - by Lynn Melnick (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of The American Poetry Review's Stern Prize, Lynn Melnick's fierce new collection celebrates the hard-earned wisdom and unruly power of midlife.

In I Deserve This, Thank You, Lynn Melnick offers a stinging, wry, and deeply personal exploration of womanhood over fifty. Building on Melnick's career-long commitment to feminist themes, these poems turn their focus toward a demographic too often rendered invisible by a youth-obsessed culture, using robust, precise language to dismantle outdated illusions. Rooted in the author's formative years in Los Angeles, these poems confront the glittering, often hollow influence of Hollywood and delve into the raw, shadowy corners of womanhood, motherhood, and political survival. This is not a polite reflection on aging; it is an inventive, forthright reckoning with the strength, anger, and resilience that come with time. I Deserve This, Thank You is a collection for anyone seeking to trade comfortable lies for hard-won truths.

About the Author

Lynn Melnick is the author of three previous poetry collections, including Refusenik, winner of the Julie Suk award and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. She is also the author of the memoir I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The New Republic, and A Public Space. She teaches at Princeton University and Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with her family.