Useful Junk
Written by Erika Meitner
Narrated by Erika Meitner
()
About this audiobook
A master of documentary poetry, Erika Meitner takes up the question of desire and intimacy in her latest collection of poems.
In her previous five collections of poetry, Erika Meitner has established herself as one of America’s most incisive observers, cherished for her remarkable ability to temper catastrophe with tenderness. In her newest collection Useful Junk, Meitner considers what it means to be a sexual being in a world that sees women as invisible—as mothers, customers, passengers, worshippers, wives. These poems render our changing bodies as real and alive, shaped by the sense memories of long-lost lovers and the still thrilling touch of a spouse after years of parenthood, affirming that we are made of every intimate moment we have ever had. Letter poems to a younger poet interspersed throughout the collection question desire itself and how new technologies—Uber, sexting, Instagram—are reframing self-image and shifting the ratios of risk and reward in erotic encounters.
With dauntless vulnerability, Meitner travels a world of strip malls, supermarkets, and subway platforms, remaining porous and open to the world, always returning to the intimacies rooted deep within the self as a shout against the dying earth. Boldly affirming that pleasure is a vital form of knowledge, Useful Junk reminds us that our selves are made real and beautiful by our embodied experiences and that our desire is what keeps us alive.
Erika Meitner
Erika Meitner's poems have appeared in The New Republic, The American Poetry Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and Tin House. She is an assistant professor of English at Virginia Tech and the author of Inventory at the All-night Drugstore.
Related to Useful Junk
Related audiobooks
Poems from the Wilderness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOver Our Heads Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiars Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jane Austen's Greatest Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaddy Issues: Love and Hate in the Time of Patriarchy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Text Messages: Or How I Found Myself Time Travelling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vintage Love Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Key to Circus-Mom Highway Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOur Own Unique Affliction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/53 Classic Novels: Sense & Sensibility Pride & Prejudice Mansfield Park Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Love Letter: A Romantic Encounter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnfinished Concrete: An Audio-Anthology of Miami Voices Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInterview with a #Vanlifer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnder The Summer Sun Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThomas Merton on Poetry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hurting Kind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stupid Boy Syndrome: 28 Poems on Love, Lust and Loss Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Breaking the Chains: Liberating Love from Codependency Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Flag Burner Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingssomeone birthed them broken: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Chaperon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Not Wives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Turns and Movies: The Early Poetry of Conrad Aiken Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStephenie Meyer: Author of the Twilight Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All love letters are ridiculous Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Resolutions: a family in stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Sonnets of William Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Children of Fatima: And Our Lady's Message to the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTeach Me How to Die: A novella Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Owl and the Nightingale: A New Verse Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strength In Our Scars Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inferno of Dante Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rumi's Little Book of Life: The Garden of the Soul, the Heart, and the Spirit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf: Translated by Seamus Heaney Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Poems: Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Raven and Other Poems: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Classic Hundred Poems: All-Time Favorites Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Milk and Honey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun and Her Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5W. B. Yeats: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poems of T.S. Eliot Read by Jeremy Irons Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poetry of Walt Whitman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Raven Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf: A New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Promises of Gold Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Useful Junk
0 ratings0 reviews