Normal Distance

A collection of funny and thought-provoking poems inspired by surprising facts that will appeal to poetry lovers and poetry haters alike from the author of the acclaimed essay collection The Unreality of Memory, “a work of sheer brilliance, beauty and bravery” (Andrew Sean Greer) Elisa Gabbert, a writer known to be both “casually brilliant” (Sandra Newman) and a “ruthless self-examiner” (Sarah Manguso) brings her “questing, restless intelligence” (Kirkus Reviews) to a new collection of poetry. By turns funny and chilling, these poems collect strange facts, interrogate language, and ask unanswerable questions that offer the pleasure of discovery on nearly every page: How does one suffer “gladly,” exactly? How bored are dogs? Which is more frightening, nothing or empty space? Was Wittgenstein sexy? With her sharp observations building to extremely quotable one-liners, the poems in this collection have an ear-wormy quality to them that’s both ultra contemporary and offers a reading experience that is at once essayistic, aphoristic, and philosophical—an invitation to eavesdrop on a mind paying attention to itself. Normal Distance is a book about thinking and feeling, meaning and experience, trees and the weather, and the boredom and pain of living through time.