Isn’t It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets

By Brett Fletcher Lauer & Aimee Kelley

• Description
• Reviews
• Bio

• 100 poets respond anew to the well-trammeled territory of the love poem. Includes audio CD of love songs.
  
  Poets include: Joe Wenderoth, Karen Volkman, D.A. Powell, Matthea Harvey, Eleni Sikelianos, Matthew Rohrer, Lisa Jarnot, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Christine Hume, Claudia Rankine, Joshua Beckman, Thalia Field, Peter Gizzi, Major Jackson, Timothy Donnelly, Kevin Young, and many more.
  
  Musicians on the audio CD include: Richard Buckner, Vic Chesnutt, CocoRosie, Jason Molina (Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co.), Doug Martsch (Built to Spill), Mark Mulcahy, Nina Nastasia, Chuck Prophet, David Berman (Silver Jews), Jenny Toomey, and more.

• A fresh and much-needed collection ... the vernacular of these well-chosen love poems will appeal to sensibilities both punk and conservative. A marvelous anthology.
  Booklist
  
  The book is one of the most enjoyable and refreshing reads in recent memory, and the supplementary CD of indie-rock love songs is sure to become the soundtrack to 2005.
  American Poet
  
  Filled with well-armed poets and wrapped in a pink cover, this anthology is the perfect Trojan Horse to infiltrate those twin citadels of predictable poetry: weddings and Valentine's Day. Unhampered by editorial insistence on what a "love poem" need be, these pieces are as funky and individual as our loves.
  Robert Strong, Boston Review
  
  Although the editors of the anthology, Brett Fletcher Lauer and Aimee Kelley, don't think their book is a direct response to the war in Iraq, they realize it cannot be taken out of the context of the current military situation. “It does seem obvious that during times of greatest turmoil people turn to poetry, seeking either an articulation of their despair or a kind of consolation,” Kelley says. “Perhaps the ultimate protest is to demonstrate possibilities for and expressions of love.”
  Kevin Larimer, Poets & Writers
  
  

• Brett Fletcher Lauer was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the co-editor of Isn’t It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets (Verse Press, 2004) and Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast (W.W. Norton, 2002). He is the Managing Editor of the Poetry Society of America, and a Poetry Editor of A Public Space, and his poems have appeared in BOMB, Boston Review, and elsewhere.
  
  Aimee Kelley received her BA in English from UC Berkeley and her MFA from the New School for Social Research. She co-edited Isn’t it Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets (Verse Press, 2004). She is the editor and publisher of CROWD Magazine and her poems have appeared in The Believer, Village Voice, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere.