Imperial Bender by Amanda Smeltz

This second edition of Amanda Smeltz’s inaugural collection of poems contains additional, previously unpublished work. “In Imperial Bender, Amanda Smeltz brings the wildfire. She schemes with rhymes. She buys a round of drinks. She cherishes people and things and life. And when the bomb-dust settles in her branches, it settles the score in all our branches. She is a badass, a poet with moxy, a poet with verve, the new Odysseus, a poet with the sense to take names and rock out. These poems are ferocious with charm, with grace, imperially bent into the heart.” —Matt Hart