Tell Me

Finalist, 2000 National Book Award for Poetry

In this new collection by the author of Jimmy & Rita and The Philosopher's Club, Kim Addonizio takes the grist of the world and transforms it into poems of transcendent beauty. Tell Me examines the ties that bind us to those we love - whether parents, siblings, children, friends, lovers or ex-lovers - in rhythm-driven verse, traditional forms and prose poems. The dual themes of love and loss recur throughout this collection in poems that ultimately push toward redemption, saved from despair by Addonizio's keen eye and wise observations about the complexities of relationships.  "This is a stunning book. Its honesty and self-knowledge will pierce you to the core. Addonizio writes of herself, her passions and predicaments without ever seeming 'confessional' or narcissistic, because what she relates is true of all mankind--especially womankind." —Carolyn Kizer " Many of the poems in Tell Me can be read as intensified versions of the barroom ballad--songs of good and bad love, songs of the allure and the failure of drink. But regardless of the subject, Kim Addonizio's poems are stark mirrors of self-examination, and she looks into them without blinking." -Billy Collins