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paper • 68 pages • 15.95
ISBN-13: 978-1-945588-18-1

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Dregs

Cynthia Cruz

On Washington Independent Review of Books’ September 2018 Best Books List.

A collection of poems constructed like a series of film montages or collages showing what the world looks like now. 

Like a series of slides from a film reel, the poems of Dregs reveal the ruin, remnants or dregs left over from the wars and economic and human inequalities of our world today.

THE HOUR OF THE STAR from Dregs

In the blue séance room

Beneath the stacked chandelier,


The miracle of sorrow, or

Milk and stars.


The deep

Key of death.


A black

Error on the edge


Of the tall

Blonde field. 


And no one knows

Where that besieged city is. 


But to go back

To that 


Little town and be born,

Again.
  • "...an exquisite fever dream of drugs, anorexia and unwanted sex (in both senses of the word) populated by young women and men...who have lost all sense of where the edge is..."-Dana Jennings, The New York Times
  • "Cruz showcases her trademark spare palette and haptic focus in a brief, satisfying fifth collection that hews close to the anxious, delirious mood of its predecessor." Read the full review.
  • "...Over and over, Cruz generates a saturating atmosphere that refuses to give in to the urge to redeem art, to instrumentalize it, to turn it into something that improves us...."-Johannes Göransson, Spoon River Poetry Review

Also by Cynthia Cruz

How the End Begins

Wunderkammer

The Glimmering Room

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