Jimmy & Rita

by Kim Addonizio

"One of the wonderful things about Jimmy & Rita is that Kim Addonizio never imposes herself in any way, so the poems sing themselves into us. We experience the victories and defeats of Jimmy and Rita... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1936205688
• ISBN13: 9781936205684
• Release Date: June 2012
• Publisher: Stephen F. Austin University Press
• Length: 89 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

stunning story from addonizio

This series of poems by Addonizio is quite different from here other two collections, but it fits very well into her body of work. Jimmy & Rita is the story of two troubled people, how they met and what happened to them. I've heard it said that for poetry to succeed it has to take back the story from prose. Addonizio's poems definitely do that.

They don't leave you alone....

My first reaction to Jimmy & Rita was that this wasn't Addonizio's earlier The Philosopher's Club. It felt, therefore, like a disappointment, with each poem too dependent on the one before or the one that followed to have the same impact as the "standalones" of her first volume. Yeah, but. I found myself thinking about those two people, Jimmy and Rita, and their friends and families. I began to imagine them inhabiting a very real space inside me as well as in California and Trenton, New Jersey (Kim, have you ever been to Trenton?--it's every bit as awful as you might imagine). I went back and reread. The language is spare, deceptive, apparently realistic but opening up both the beauty and ugliness of love, its passion, ferocity, and disillusionment. At the end it is indeed a novel in verse, a testimony about survival, of having to let go of a beloved hand when the person at the end of that beloved hand is drowning and threatens to pull you under too. It is a long, urban epic, and it is treasurable because it is entirely unforgettable.

Finally a poet with spunk!

Unlike most modern day poets Ms. Addonizio has more to say than how warm and beautiful love is. She gets to the heart of life and love in a unique revolutionary way. I whole-heartendly reccommend this refreshing and unusual book

Welcome to perfection

Kim Addonizio keeps shocking me by putting out books unlike any I've ever read. She is an eloquent, smart, sassy and just plain intelligent writer. By this book and if you missed her other one read it too. You won't be sorry

What A Story

The most incredible piece of poetry I've ever read. Ms. Addonizio has proven that poetry truly can be found in the most unlikely places. I'm anxiously awaiting her novel...in the meantime, pick up this book, even if you hate poetry. It will open your eyes.