Fan Mail from Some Flounder

Description

(Main Street Rag Publishing, 2018).

As the title’s reference to The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show suggests, Lisa Vihos’ “Fan Mail from Some Flounder” is a very funny book, but it’s also a very wise and moving book, one that affirms life while acknowledging the inevitability of death, loss, and grief. After reading her fan letters to more than a dozen poets—from Shakespeare to Billy Collins—and to the world, you’ll want to write her a fan letter. — David Jauss, co-author of Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms

Such a delight [this book], a comedy of the most serious kind. Lisa Vihos reaches through time to connect in a casual, audacious, boundary-crossing way to sit with dead poets and engage as if they were on the porch, in the parlor, sitting at the kitchen table having a beer. She writes, “My beat, your beat, our shared refrain.” What a beautiful gift of poetic companionship. — Heather Derr-Smith