Crushing It

By Jennifer L. Knox

The title of Crushing It comes from a conversation Knox had with Ada Limón. Knox was telling a story about struggling during an ADHD test despite her brain telling her she was “crushing it,” and Limón replied that phrase would make an excellent title.

This book contains more autobiographical poems than all Knox’s other books combined, starting with the dedication, “To My Mother, ‘A classy, funny lady,’” which is what Knox’s mother wants inscribed on her tombstone. Knox said it required “a terrifying level of vulnerability” to reveal these parts of herself.

Jennifer Knox is considered an underappreciated voice--her humorous and at times crass poetry was initially not wholeheartedly welcomed by the literary establishment.

As she has continued to publish, Knox has garnered increasing acclaim, and now is an influential voice in the literary scene.

Knox’s poems are a refreshing new perspective, employing colloquial language, pop culture references, and absurdist humor to craft a singular poetic voice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Release date: Oct 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781619322318

Book preview

I. Mines

THE MORNING I MET MY NEW FAMILY

A forest of conifers stands upright on the floor

of Fallen Leaf Lake in California’s Tahoe Basin,

deposited by millenniums of landslides. Trees 100

feet tall, mummified in icy alpine water, needles

still pristine. Rock-encrusted root-balls weigh

them down, but every now and then one

shoots up like a prehistoric rocket.

Everyone else

on the yacht was passed out when Merle Haggard

heard a roar, looked up from the pile of cocaine and saw

a whale-sized Christmas tree erupt from the water,

felt its wake’s glittery spray, smelled its piney sap as

it sailed over the deck, hovered a sec, spun, then splatted

back to earth unanchored, yet forever tethered to Merle

and all the naked people stirring on deck, awakened

by this second birth, as "From now on all my friends

are gonna be strangers" blared on repeat.

WOLVERINE SEASON

Oh, honey, are you okay?

I asked the woman in the bathroom,

soaking wet as if she’d just emerged

from the shower. "Yeah—maybe too

mush rum on an empty shtomach."

She wiped her mouth with her hand

and left. In the sink, waxy red flecks

of lipstick. "That woman over there

just puked up lipstick in the bathroom!"

I yelled in my friend’s ear over

the Black Sabbath tribute band.

Write a poem about that!

she yelled back and smiled.

We were up late for a school night—

it was all part of the new regimen.

The documentary I’d just seen about death

said rocking out is actually good for you.

And rocking out to Sabbath? Dude,

we were gonna live, like, forever

on the bones other animals passed up.

MR. BIG

"So I’ve been reading about this

police sting operation that’s legal

in Canada and Australia, but not here. The … criminal?"

"The perp!" B corrects me and takes

a sip of her macchiato.

"Ha! The perp! Yes, so the perp

brutally murdered his girlfriend and the cops

couldn’t pin it on him so they

sent in an undercover man who looked like a real

big-shot mafioso type …"

"Mmhm. Mr. Big," B nods.

"Exactly. So Mr. Big gives the perp

a lot of important things to do, run money,

deliver packages, drive him around,

and all the while Mr. Big’s telling the perp

I can’t run things without you, blah blah blah…"

Mmhm. Heh.

"Then he says to the perp, We’re taking this business

to the next level and I want you to run the show, but

you gotta tell me everything you ever did

wrong … I mean …"

Idiot.

"Can you imagine someone showing up

out of nowhere and saying,

You’re just the guy we’ve been looking for!

And you believe them?!"

No, I cannot, B snorts

and I snort.

Hi, I yip too quickly at a woman walking by

our bench. It’s rare—foot traffic at the end

of this secluded marble hall, where we’ve come

to hide from everyone who

has, could, and will turn on us.

OLD WOMEN TALKING ABOUT DEATH

When did I become one of them? I used to

roll my eyes at their gory stories: EMTs found

a neighbor at the bottom