Love & Loss, Puns & Wordplay, Self-Help & Psychology, Love Poems, Death, Grief & Loss, Popular Culture 

"[A] provocative reinterpretation of poetry's function...Here is devastating meta-poetry for the board game–playing, smartphone-scrolling masses, both accessible and enlightened."—Publisher's WeeklyI am of my times and you screengrab out of ancient nowhere, the title of one of the poems in Starkweather's second collection, PAIN: The Board Game, perfectly captures both his utter contemporariness and his empathetic treatment of our most primal conditions: "dis- / appointment / & misery / & helplessness / & suffering / & pain / & fear."As he deploys the #trending and vintage lexicons of technology and pop culture with the depth and ease of a true lyricist, Starkweather pushes his poems into the territory of universal affect and risky humanity, to the root of our desire to connect. This is the contemporary poem that, just after it has "Shazamed / your orgasm" resurrects "the rough magic / of bodies / illuminating / the lack / of any / limitation / when one." Starkweather's unyielding, funny, luminous poetry is a brand new classic.Also includes 15 color illustrations by artist Jon-Michael Frank.3 shots to the chest at the arcadeSadness is my favorite video gameI am its herothe little man with facial hairscampering through pixilated citieslooking for cluesand accumulating shitwithout knowing whytrying notto be crushedor free fallinto the not-world’s darkas 8-bit cloudsscroll across the pre-programmed skyit’s exhaustingbut I take itnext levelI am happy hereit feels realand I can always die - from Amzon