New & Selected: 13 Questions for the Next Economy

Susan Briante, award-winning poet and chronicler of globalization, The Great Recession, and the militarization of daily life, returns with 13Questions for the Next Economy. This visionary collection, from the author of the Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus prize-winning Defacing the Monument, weaves together selections from her four previous books with arresting new poems and visuals. Across these pages, NAFTA, industrial ruins, falling market indices, and the archives of state violence form interdependent constellations. A child is born, parents die, and an economic system continues to extract its lethal toll. ＂Where does the riot begin?＂ Briante asks. Here, in poetry that charts how too-late capitalism desecrates contemporary lives. Adopting the aesthetics and the urgency of the zine, Briante’s work charts interconnected constellations of economic and political systems that govern our lives. These systems (like language) leave their mark on everything. And yet, poems resist. In a perfect world, you would pick up this book from a blanket laid out on a sidewalk alongside knock-off Doc Martens, old magazines, cellophaned wrapped candy, and small bundles of wildflowers. You might not pay for it. You’d read it, make a copy, pass it on.