Description
"If the LOLSOB emoji could write verse that both sings and stings, the result would be Satan Talks to His Therapist."
--Allison Joseph, author of Confessions of a Barefaced Woman
In Satan Talks to His Therapist, Melissa Balmain explores the lighter side of dark times. Playful yet poignant, her poems perfectly capture our human fallibility and comedic sense of importance. The collection begins with "On Looking at an MRI Cross-Section," in which Balmain peeks inside her own skull to consider the jumble of thoughts and memories harbored there. After this introduction to the poet's inner world, the book divides into three sections: Spiraling Down, In Limbo, and Climbing Out. The poems in this lyrical descent and ascent are about climate change, social media, pandemics, politics (sexual and otherwise), parenthood, consumerism, aging, loss, and ills, both physical and societal. Balmain writes in meter and rhyme, and she uses traditional forms (sonnets, villanelles, terza rima) as well as ones she's coined for the moment. The poems in Satan Talks to His Therapist provide clarity and comedy in a time that feels anything but clear or comic, and they hint at the consolations of art, kindness, maturity, persistence, love, and, of course, humor.
"Balmain treads that fine line between comedy and tragedy in poems graced by telling details, surprising turns, and a keen sense of the absurd ... Satan Talks to His Therapist is a serious book that's very funny, and Melissa Balmain's gift is being able to tilt toward humor without losing the ache beneath the laughter."
--Literary Matters"It turns out that the literary establishment can't quite kill off humorous poetry. Melissa Balmain's Satan Talks to His Therapist is a marvel in the tradition of Martial, Jonathan Swift, and Dorothy Parker and the more recent generation of poets that includes Wendy Cope, X.J. Kennedy, and R.S. Gwynn. It is poetry you will enjoy--and enjoy giving to a friend who needs to see some humor in a world desperate for the medicine of laughter."
--A.M. Juster, author of Wonder & Wrath
Author: Melissa Balmain
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Published: 09/12/2023
Pages: 91
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.30d
ISBN13: 9781589881815
ISBN10: 1589881818
BISAC Categories:
- Humor | Form | Limericks & Verse
- Poetry | Women Authors
- Poetry | American | General
--Allison Joseph, author of Confessions of a Barefaced Woman
In Satan Talks to His Therapist, Melissa Balmain explores the lighter side of dark times. Playful yet poignant, her poems perfectly capture our human fallibility and comedic sense of importance. The collection begins with "On Looking at an MRI Cross-Section," in which Balmain peeks inside her own skull to consider the jumble of thoughts and memories harbored there. After this introduction to the poet's inner world, the book divides into three sections: Spiraling Down, In Limbo, and Climbing Out. The poems in this lyrical descent and ascent are about climate change, social media, pandemics, politics (sexual and otherwise), parenthood, consumerism, aging, loss, and ills, both physical and societal. Balmain writes in meter and rhyme, and she uses traditional forms (sonnets, villanelles, terza rima) as well as ones she's coined for the moment. The poems in Satan Talks to His Therapist provide clarity and comedy in a time that feels anything but clear or comic, and they hint at the consolations of art, kindness, maturity, persistence, love, and, of course, humor.
"Balmain treads that fine line between comedy and tragedy in poems graced by telling details, surprising turns, and a keen sense of the absurd ... Satan Talks to His Therapist is a serious book that's very funny, and Melissa Balmain's gift is being able to tilt toward humor without losing the ache beneath the laughter."
--Literary Matters"It turns out that the literary establishment can't quite kill off humorous poetry. Melissa Balmain's Satan Talks to His Therapist is a marvel in the tradition of Martial, Jonathan Swift, and Dorothy Parker and the more recent generation of poets that includes Wendy Cope, X.J. Kennedy, and R.S. Gwynn. It is poetry you will enjoy--and enjoy giving to a friend who needs to see some humor in a world desperate for the medicine of laughter."
--A.M. Juster, author of Wonder & Wrath
Author: Melissa Balmain
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Published: 09/12/2023
Pages: 91
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.30d
ISBN13: 9781589881815
ISBN10: 1589881818
BISAC Categories:
- Humor | Form | Limericks & Verse
- Poetry | Women Authors
- Poetry | American | General
About the Author
Melissa Balmain is the author of two poetry collections, Walking in on People and The Witch Demands a Retraction: Fairy Tale Reboots for Adults, as well as a memoir, Just Us: Adventures and Travels of a Mother and Daughter. Walking in on People was chosen by X.J. Kennedy for the Able Muse Book Award. She is the editor of Light, America's longest-running journal of comic verse, and the author of more than
two thousand published poems, humor pieces, articles, columns, and essays. A member of the University of Rochester's
English Department since 2010, Balmain lives nearby with her husband and (for
now) one of their two children. She is a recovering mime.