I Was Bonnie and Clyde

In Kasischke's newest collection, every moment contains an infinity: the mundane in the monumental, and the monumental in the mundane. I Was Bonnie and Clyde illuminates small collisions between life and death, from “that last suitcase circling / its last loop / for all of eternity" to “the mole / hauled out of the ground / by the dog / to die in the sun." Ghosts haunt and heighten these poems as they draw upon the independent weariness of women throughout history: Bonnie Parker, Lady Godiva, Amy Winehouse, a handbook's unnamed perfect hostess. Lovingly self-effacing, Kasischke evokes vulnerability, disbelief, and tragedy with a quiet, conversational reverence. With wordplay and exclamation, lament and ironic humor, these poems invite as they reflect, reaching out to a forbidding world.