Xanax Cowboy - by Hannah Green (Paperback)

About the Book

"Hannah Green's edgy, often darkly comedic debut, Xanax Cowboy, is a long poem that considers the romanticization of addiction and mental illness (particularly in relation to the notion of the artist) via the romanticization of the Wild West. Cowboys are supposed to be messed up, a bit raw around the edges. The speaker wants to be loved for this too, and doesn't care if she is the only one laughing. The long poem is known for its resistance to form and expectation. Xanax Cowboy is as obsessed with itself as other long poems. It is vain. It is ridiculous. It is a tangent with new shapes, line breaks, and metaphors. Highly referential, mostly in terms of pop culture and iconography -- drawing from sources such as Michael Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and the films of Quentin Tarantino -- Xanax Cowboy also deploys a specifically feminist approach, giving it additional urgency and energy. Xanax Cowboy insists on its variety of form and approach. Its strangeness. Its boldness. Its smoking pistols. Prepare yourself for a whiskey-drenched Western where pills fall from the sky and the speaker swallows Hollywood's version of the cowboy, its loneliness resting in her belly."--

Book Synopsis

Winner, 2023 Governor General's Literary Award
Winner, 2024 League of Canadian Poets' Gerald Lampert Memorial Award

The Xanax Cowboy has a reputation like a rattlesnake. She might as well be a strike-anywhere match in a gasoline town. Her whiskey is mixed with vengeance like her mind is mixed with pills. The last doctor who told her she ain't nothin' is still spitting blood through a split lip.

Review Quotes

"Brimming with verve, wit and bravado, Hannah Green's Xanax Cowboy is a brain-jolting joy." -- The Ampersand Review

"Reading [Xanax Cowboy] is an undeniably cinematic experience ... There is so much gold that has been dug-up in this wild-west." -- The Fiddlehead

"A bingeable book of poetry ... Xanax Cowboy displays a raw honesty on important topics. Green balances tone and content, form and media, to deliver a powerhouse of a debut book from title to finishing line." -- Freefall

"A true original - smart and aggressive and assured." -- Shakespearean Rag

"Breaching borders and breaking boundaries ... [Xanax Cowboy] subverts expectations with feminist contortions in the twists and turns of phrase, form, and verse." -- The Miramichi Reader

"Even as it treats serious topics like romanticizing addiction, Xanax Cowboy is riotously funny, brimming with wit and bravado ... Exceptional debut." -- ARC Poetry

"Green's debut is timely and witty. It leaves nothing off stage, hides nothing. It is a revelation of living in our anxious times. It is wisely engaging." -- Quill & Quire, STARRED REVIEW

"Hannah Green's figurative language is so dazzling, her tone so sardonically witty ... her debut is indeed a romp." -- Toronto Star

"Playing on the way suffering has been romanticized in writers and in cowboys, Green skewers this cultural demand for authenticity." -- Winnipeg Free Press