EBOOK
About
The Anxiety Workbook explores contemporary anxiety, grief in its multitude of forms, and complicated familial dynamics via the lens of science and history while utilizing the language of therapy. These poems grapple with the ever-evolving collective and individual trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as seek answers and lessons from the natural world. The termination of a pregnancy, a distant father, the untimely death of a friend, our society's obsession with Dateline and missing white girls, the estivation of the West African lungfish—The Anxiety Workbook covers these topics and much more in poems ranging from the hypernarrative to the highly lyrical, rich in voice and description.
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Reviews
"Keats tells us that 'poetry should surprise by a fine excess,' which is to say that Keats might be a little jealous of Christina Olson's The Anxiety Workbook. Her work always surprises, either by way of humor or confession or observation or reflection or lyricism-sometimes all in the same poem. Few poets could make the Venn diagram of personal anxiety, a deep interest in mastodons, COVID pandemic
Dean Rader, NBCC Balakian Award finalist for excellence in reviewing
"A thing I love about Christina Olson's poems is the lightly off-kilter lens through which she examines the world, the way she invents and discovers beauty from unlikely sources. There are plenty of terrible things to worry about in The Anxiety Workbook, but also classic movies, reality television, wondrous flora and fauna, the Oregon Trail, and mastodon bones. Olson writes, 'It's not suffocation
W. Todd Kaneko, author of This Is How the Bone Sings
"In The Anxiety Workbook, Christina Olson shares the daily work of surviving our times, surviving childhood, surviving loved ones, surviving ourselves. This capacious collection considers all manner of flora and fauna, including mastodons, dogs, wisteria, and lungfish; friends and family show up, as well as fathers including the speaker's and Thomas Jefferson. This book is at turns humorous and po
Sean Hill, author of Dangerous Goods
Extended Details
- SeriesPitt Poetry