Fat Chance: Journalism Poems

By Kent McCarter

In Fat Chance, poet and publisher Kent MacCarter investigates variations on how non-fiction can be reported, taking an uncanny look into sole survivors of major airline crashes, a memoir approach at the surgical complication known as gossypiboma -- where an instrument is left behind in a body cavity after surgery -- a recount of marketing tactics for children's toys and more.

Columns of justified prose lure you into the familiar channels of reporting facts; you could be mistaken for believing there is no poet or poetry here at all. Yet, the primary purpose of Fat Chance is not the transmission of information, and it thrives on contradiction. Contrary to the title's colloquial meaning, it offers you ample possibility. Here, the journalistic and the poetic collide to liberate language from truth so you can wander in the wide, bountiful space between.

Emotion is denuded from the stories, forcing you to fill the void with your own suppositions and terrors … rubbernecking at yourself on why you are uncomfortably allured. With its irony and absurdity dialled up to the sublime, you will be confronted by this feel-bad book of the year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Inc. Books
• Release date: Jan 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9781743823477

Kent McCarter

Kent MacCarter is a poet and publisher based in Castlemaine, Victoria. His publishing career began at University of Chicago Press in 2000; since then, he has worked with educational publishers and, for the past 12 years been the managing editor of Cordite Poetry Review and for 8 years publisher of Cordite Books. His writing has been published widely and includes four poetry collections. Kent has been an active participant in writing and publishing communities for decades.

Book preview

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