A 400-page collection of poems in fours sections: Nicki Minaj Songs, Bob Dylan Songs, Elliott Smith Songs, and 90s Riot Grrrls Songs.

 

"the most important book of poetry you could ever read for any one interested in understanding their relationship to themselves, to the people around them, to their society and place in the world."

 – Elle Nash, author of Animals Eat Each Other 

 

"Elizabeth Ellen's poetry collection is voyeuristic and honest - a punk ethos coupled with challenging ideas, sex appeal, and a lot of heart. I could not put this book down and am buzzing with excitement about it. The question is what do we write when no one is watching and this book is the answer."

 – Brigitte Driller, Goodreads 

 

“[The poems] feel like drawn-on Polaroids. Haiku delivered aloud by a rock frontwoman to a room of a thousand people forgetting to drink their drinks.”

 – Amanda Goldblatt

 

“[Elizabeth Ellen] is the female Love Is a Dog from Hell.”

 – Chloe Caldwell, author of Women

 

“Reading Elizabeth Ellen’s poems, I’m reminded that the best literature screams, feels desperate, is written while wearing sweatpants and eating take-out alone and feeling ugly and rejected, unwanted.  Reading Elizabeth Ellen gives me hope that every writer actually isn’t agent-obsessed and in search of commercial acceptance. Reading Elizabeth Ellen reminds me that the only actual point of literature is to make yourself and others feel less alone. That’s pretty much it. That’s pretty much enough.”

 – Brian Alan Ellis

 

“I read these poems on my bathroom floor in the dark.”

 – Amanda McNeil

 

"Sometimes these poems feel like you’re reading a friend’s texts to a crush. One of the poems is called something like 'I think I have exhausted the point at which my audience wants to hear about you or us or whatever.' Then she writes probably 88 more poems about that relationship."

-Mike A., Goodreads

 

Bluets

 

I finally tore Bluets in half @ 12:50 a.m.

I had had enough of it, of its blueness…

I had begun to loathe its preciousness, its precision

What it represents -

Its fans, the copycats

What it had made of women, female writers;

The academia, the polishedness, the politeness.

I missed the messy.

I loathed it for being a finished book,

Laid out and finalized in this form now in hand,

All its desisions made for it

I couldn’t make one more desision

(I had forgotten momentarily how to spell “decision.”)

I couldn’t materialize an editor

(all editorial decisions had to be made by me!)

it was a blessing and a curse

(can you tell?!)

 

I had read earlier in the summer an interview with Grimes

She made being independent a record label or independent a producer

(I couldn’t remember the precise ways in which Grimes was independent,

Only that it was important that she was.),

Sound enviable, fashionable, fun!

 

I found it to be a headache

I couldn’t stop thinking of Grimes’ ex boyfriend

The long car ride from Toronto to Montreal

In which he hadn’t said a word

His current girlfriend, my friend, driving,

Myself and C and Tanja, muted by his intense

Sulking, in the backseat.

 

Later we watched a Grimes’ video

In which he was featured.

His head was shaved then, too.

 

There is no one making editorial decisions here.

Oh, can you tell?