Wait, am I thinking of the Internet? Oh, maybe not, but what I'm thinking of is desperate and very, very like it. Layering comedy over insight over rue and pathos over comedy, mixing its flexible couplets with beautifully spiky free verse, Erik Kennedy's first collection should climb up all the right charts: his phrases can go anywhere, then come back, and he has figured out how to sound both trustworthy and nonplussed, both giddy and humble, in the same breath. Sometimes he impersonates spiny lobsters; sometimes he's a socialist chambered nautilus. Sometimes he's our best guide to the globe-trotting ridiculous. And sometimes (start with `Mailing in a Form Because There's No Online Form') he's the `un-flick-off-able', so-wrong-he's-just-right guide to the way we live now. -Steph Burt Erik Kennedy, steeped in his craft, knows his poetic ropes and that is why his book is a constant delight. -James Norcliffe