The Ghost-Star King

$19.00

By Adam Tavel

Adam Tavel’s The Ghost-Star King is part apocalyptical landscape, part fantastical romp through classrooms and the ruined empires of capitalism. While each poem begins in mock-epic style announcing “I, Oedipus,” this book’s Oedipus is plural, playful, and elliptical. Tavel’s innovative collection is made of verse blocks arranged as a kind of play in three-parts: critique of America, the plague, and the aftermath. With sonic verve and swelling syntax, these poems invite us to frolic and rage alongside Oedipus, who palpably longs for Thebes, and states: “I’d like to be that storm, that sand on sand, your little hand in mine, a partial rhyme.” This is a raucous and dazzling book.—Hadara Bar-Nadav, author of The Singing Pills

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About Adam Tavel

Adam Tavel is the author of six books of poetry, including Rubble Square. The recipient of the Richard Wilbur Award, Permafrost Book Prize, and Robert Frost Award, his recent work appears in The North American Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Hopkins Review, AGNI, and Ploughshares, among others.

Praise for The Ghost-Star King

In The Ghost-Star King, Adam Tavel brings Oedipus into the modern American moment, replete with companions as likely and unlikely as Darth Vader, Kanye West, Glenn Beck, and Caspar David Friedrich. Tavel’s monologues assemble into a jangly symphony connecting contemporary pandemics, climate catastrophes, and political strife with the myths of history. The result is a rich and soulful collection for an era that desperately needs it.—Jaswinder Bolina, author of English as a Second Language and Other Poems

We all know we will understand contemporary America through tragedy, not through podcasts. Adam Tavel takes us on a Sophoclean vision quest into our frozen present. His book is wildly original, traumatized, and funky. It’s an act of exorcism, necessary and unforgettable. —D. Nurkse, author of A Country of Strangers