Descent of the Dolls Part I by Jeffery Conway, Gillian McCain, and David Trinidad

Dante’s Inferno meets the 1967 movie Valley of the Dolls in this collaborative descent into a Hollywood camp classic. Over ten years in the writing, the first installment of this epic poetic conversation sees poets Jeffery Conway, Gillian McCain, and David Trinidad pair up with their respective Virgil-esque guides: Frank O’Hara, Sharon Tate, and Anne Sexton. Our three poets follow the film’s heroines—Anne, Neely, and Jennifer—backstage into the murky circles of Showbiz and PoBiz. Down, down, down they go. Anything can happen: Allen Ginsberg kicks a talented poet out of the show, Joan Crawford makes a drunken visitation, the heads of ambitious M.F.A. poetry students roll! An impressive array of contemporary poets guest star: D.A. Powell (with his guide Tennessee Williams), Wayne Koestenbaum as Joey Bishop, Denise Duhamel as Sharon Tate’s mother, and Aaron Smith as the messenger boy—and what a message he delivers! There’s nothing else like it. Add to cart now!

Jeffery Conway’s books include Showgirls: The Movie in Sestinas, The Album That Changed My Life, and two collaborations with Lynn Crosbie and David Trinidad, Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse and Chain Chain Chain. His work can be found in Dream Closet: Meditations on Childhood Space, Rabbit Ears: TV Poems, and This Business of Words: Reassessing Anne Sexton. He lives in Philadelphia.

Gillian McCain is the author of two books of poetry, Tilt and Religion. With Legs McNeil she co-wrote Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk and co-edited Dear Nobody: The True Story of Mary Rose. She is the former Program Coordinator and Board President of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. She lives in New York City.

David Trinidad’s books include Notes on a Past Life, Dear Prudence: New and Selected Poems, Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera, The Late Show, and Plasticville. He is also the editor of A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos. He lives in Chicago, where he is a Professor of Creative Writing/Poetry at Columbia College.

Book Information:

· Paperback: 272 pages
· Binding: Perfect-Bound
· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books]
· ISBN: 978-1-60964-260-0

$18

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