Ali Liebegott is reeling from a fresh, painful divorce. She wallows in grief and overassigns meaning to everyday circumstance, clinging to an aging Dalmatian and obsessing over dead birds. Going through the motions of teaching and walking her dog, she eventually decides to hit the road: Ali and Rorschach at the Center of the World.
This autobiographical novel-in-verse is a chronicle of mourning and survival, documenting depression and picking apart failed intimacy. But Ali Liebegott’s poetry is laced with compassion, for herself and the reader and the world, as she learns to balance the sting of death with the tender strangeness of life.
"Ali Liebegott is a pillar of queer poetry, and her new collection solidifies why. It’s a potent little meditation on grief. Gorgeous and raw. . . . Liebegott’s poetry is deeply affecting and utterly readable. For such a fast read, The Summer of Dead Birds lingers for a long time." —Rewire
