Plastic's Republic (260) (Essential Poets series) Paperback – April 1, 2019

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Guernica Editions; First edition (April 1, 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 120 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1771833688
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1771833684
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.3 x 9 inches

Prose and free verse poems make up this pop culture somewhat of an exploration or homage to Barbie, yes that Barbie.  These are hip poems with a smack of realism.  Riccio’s writing is imaginative yet somehow navigates the past, present and future of commercialism, coming of age, so many things.  From the poem “Beyond Celebrity”:  “In this manufactured world / a synthetic nature comes in handy.”  Giovanna redefines her poetical style in these pages.  Her poems steer away from the obvious, they take the fast track to set poetry ablaze giving us a new look and vision into the everyday.

The Violence of Mirrors

The soothsayer,
sensing the violence of mirrors,
prophesied that Narcissus would only live
until the moment he saw himself.
Following that self-same impulse
for surface reflection, my mother
went missing, vanished
into big dreams made of small playthings.
I didn’t want a designing dad
I wanted linoleum, turquoise
Formica spattered with black stars,
the mom business straight up.
When I complained, her love
bent back on itself, my deep longing
stilled in the face of her invention.
“I took care of the children or anything else,”
she informed the interviewer who asked
and blind to a double swap, we fell headfirst
into the afterlife made from our drowning.

About the Author

Giovanna Riccio is a graduate of the University of Toronto where she studied philosophy. Her poems have appeared in national and international journals and magazines as well as numerous anthologies. Translations of her poems have been published in Italian, French and Romanian. She is the author of Vittorio (Lyricalmyrical Press, 2010) and Strong Bread (Quattro Books, 2011).