It's Not You, It's Me

The Poetry of Breakup

Jerry Williams

• Publisher: Abrams Press
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781468304336
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

"This may be an anthology for anyone who's been broken-hearted, but it's not an anthology for anyone who's faint-hearted... Superb" ( Entertainment Weekly ). It's Not You, It's Me is a poetry anthology—at once amusing, angry, sweet, and bitter—that gives a fresh voice to the all-too-familiar experience of ending a relationship. Williams has compiled over ninety poems by contemporary writers including Denis Johnson and Kim Addonizio, as well as former poets laureate Robert Hass, Maxine Kumin, and Mark Strand, whose comforting and healing words dragged him out of his breakup-induced depression. We have all been through a breakup, but these poems have created an art out of heartbreak: sharing their wisdom on the pain of the flip side of romance, and poking fun at the mess we become at the mercy of love. "This collection... gathers many of the poems that have helped Williams (a poet himself, with two books to his name) through his rooms of anguish over the years. Happily, they're pretty great." — The New York Times "In It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup today's big contemporary poets make breaking up and even divorce sound painfully beautiful. You'll want to read with a box of tissues, a pint of chocolate ice cream and sappy love songs playing in the background." —Lemon Drop Literary

III

The Aftermath

EX-BOYFRIENDS

KIM ADDONIZIO

They hang around, hitting on your friends

or else you never hear from them again.

They call when they’re drunk, or finally get sober,

they’re passing through town and want dinner,

they take your hand across the table, kiss you

when you come back from the bathroom.

They were your loves, your victims,

your good dogs or bad boys, and they’re over

you now. One writes a book in which a woman

who sounds suspiciously like you

is the first to be sadistically dismembered

by a serial killer. They’re getting married

and want you to be the first to know,

or they’ve been fired and need a loan,

their new girlfriend hates you,

they say they don’t miss you but show up

in your dreams, calling to you from the shoeboxes

where they’re buried in rows in your basement.

Some nights you find one floating into bed with you,

propped on an elbow, giving you a look

of fascination, a look that says I can’t believe

I’ve found you. It’s the same way

your current boyfriend gazed at you last night,

before he pulled the plug on the tiny white lights

above the bed, and moved against you in the dark

broken occasionally by the faint restless arcs

of headlights from the freeway’s passing trucks,

the big rigs that travel and travel,

hauling their loads between cities, warehouses,

following the familiar routes of their loneliness.

DIVORCED FATHERS AND PIZZA CRUSTS

MARK HALLIDAY

The connection between divorced fathers and pizza crusts

is understandable. The divorced father does not cook

confidently. He wants his kid to enjoy dinner.

The entire weekend is supposed to be fun. Kids love

pizza. For some reason involving soft warmth and malleability

kids approve of melted cheese on pizza

years before they will tolerate cheese in other situations.

So the divorced father takes the kid and the kid’s friend

out for pizza. The kids eat much faster than the dad.

Before the dad has finished his second slice,

the kids are playing a video game or being Ace Ventura

or blowing spitballs through straws, making this hail

that can’t quite be cleaned up. There are four slices left

and the divorced father doesn’t want them wasted,

there has been enough waste already; he sits there

in his windbreaker finishing the pizza. It’s good

except the crust is actually not so great—

after the second slice the crust is basically a chore—

so you leave it. You move on to the next loaded slice.

Finally there you are amid rims of crust.

All this is understandable. There’s no dark conspiracy.

Meanwhile the kids are having a pretty good time

which is the whole point. So the entire evening makes

clear sense. Now the divorced father gathers

the sauce-stained napkins for the trash and dumps them

and dumps the rims of crust which are not

corpses on a battlefield. Understandability

fills the pizza shop so thoroughly there’s no room

for anything else. Now he’s at the door summoning the kids

and they follow, of course they do, he’s a dad.

LOVER RELEASE AGREEMENT

J. ALLYN ROSSER

Against his lip, whose service has been tendered

lavishly to me, I hold no lien.

Here’s his heart, which finally has blundered

from my custody. Here’s his spleen.

Hereafter let your hair and eyes and breasts

be venue for his daydreams and his nights.

Here are smart things I’ve said, and all the rest

you’ll hear about. Here are all our fights.

Now, whereas I waive rights to his kiss,

the bed you’ve shared with him has rendered null

his privilege in mine. Know that, and this:

undying love was paid to me in full.

No matter how your pleasures with him shine,

you’ll always be comparing them to mine.

THE CHAIR

STEPHEN BERG

When he told me about the breakup of his marriage, about his wife fucking other men now, (that’s what he believed),...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• I: One Foot Out the Door
• II: In the Middle of the Storm
• III: The Aftermath
• Permissions
• Acknowledgments
• About the Contributors
• From It’s Not You, It’s Me