Punishment Bag: Poems

In conversation with collections like John Ashbery's Some Trees and Wallace Stevens's Harmonium, Punishment Bag is a daring poetry debut that carves its own unsettling territory.

Jake Fournier’s Punishment Bag asserts that poetry ought to exceed its author’s intelligence. At once caustic and tender, this daring debut spans from dense, refractory lyrics to lucid narratives. As ghosts materialize at the periphery of late-night dialogues and spiritual seekers slide into hedonic disaffection, or...