Baby, I Don't Care

by Chelsey Minnis

Overview

"One of the most unusual and persuasive books of poems I’ve read in some time."—Dwight Garner, New York Times

“In a flurry of ideas, and with her typically sparse and open-ended lines, Minnis approaches her subject from a dizzying array of angles: ironic, celebratory, mournful, panicked, and often funny.” —Publishers Weekly

Chelsey Minnis’s new collection of poems follows the struggle of a flawed character in a cinematic world. Playing with old ideas of wealth and love from Holly wood’s golden era, these poems flirt with nostalgia without ever succumbing to it, casting a new light on the present through the fantasies of the past.

What do you want with me? I’m just a dirty little shoplifter.
I’m like a woman in a sequined gown in a dark cave. Can you tell me I’m worse than others?
OK, yes, I’m worse than others, but can you say I’m the worst of all?

Chelsey Minnis grew up in Denver. She attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of Poemland (Wave Books, 2009), Zirconia (Fence Books, 2001), Foxina (Seeing Eye Books, 2002) and Bad Bad (Fence Books, 2007). She lives in Boulder, Colorado. She also writes screenplays.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781940696720
Publisher:	Wave Books
Publication date:	09/04/2018
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	17 Years

About the Author

Chelsey Minnis grew up in Denver. She attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the author of Poemland (Wave Books, 2009), Zirconia (Fence Books, 2001), Foxina (Seeing Eye Books, 2002) and Bad Bad (Fence Books, 2007). She lives in Boulder, Colorado. She also writes screenplays.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTIONS

Everyone knows dates and locations and things like that.

But, I don’t know anything like that.

Now, let's have a kiss.

I can send you a bill for the poem.

It costs a meat locker full of rubies.

I'm going to do a lot of tough thinking.

You're furnishing the liquor.

Let's mess up our lives the right way.

There is something in the mind called the soul.

But we've got to beat everyone using only our good looks.

What's the use of thinking?

Some people can't come along.

Sometimes I don't talk to anyone. I just fixate on their necktie.

The kind of person I am, you don't hurt the other person.

But your perfume climbs on like a tarantula.

Am I laughing?

On the contrary.

Please let me think of the right self-reprimands.

I assure you, this will be a conventional poem.

Now let me introduce you to a hungry tigress, me.

What do you want with me?

I'm just a dirty little shoplifter.

I'm like a woman in a sequined gown in a dark cave.

Can you tell me I'm worse than others?

OK, yes, I'm worse than others, but can you say I'm the worst of all?

Now, let's be reasonable with ourselves.

If you show me a man in a turtleneck sweater on the beach

then that is beyond my resistance.

If you show me a liquor cart on wheels,

I will just climb on.

Who am I?

Someone who kisses your shoulder when they're not supposed to.

I'm wearing high heels by the pool so that makes everything OK.

Now don't be charming, darling.

There could be a lot of smashed vases in our future.

What should I do? Mind my manners?

I'm the type of person to lose an emerald ring.

I might drop it in my champagne and drink it.

How can I be such a swine?

Oh, darling. I hate to be thirsty.

Let's have a drink, medicinally.

I'll stand on the couch and introduce myself.

This isn't a drink, it's pure leopard sweat!

You shouldn't be allowed to run around with me.

I'll only give you a good time.

Table of Contents

Contents

I

INTRODUCTIONS

LAZINESS

VIPs
SUCCESS

LARCENY

HANDSOME

COMPLIMENTS

ROMANCE
FUN & GAMES

GOLDDIGGER

BOREDOM

GOODBYE

II

DARLING

YOU

BARGAINING

BUSINESS

SEDUCTION

ARRANGEMENTS

DEATH

DRINKING

FIGHTS

THREATS 1

REGRET

THREATS 2

MURDER

NERVES

BREAKDOWN

THE END

III

DEPRESSION

RICH

GENTLEMAN

PHILOSOPHIZING

SHOWDOWN

ICEBERG

ENGAGED

LOVE

MARRIED

GREATNESS

FAILURE

Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

Some poets are cutters, others are curers, showing up to every occasion like a condolence-wisher with a casserole. Chelsey Minnis is firmly in the first category. Her verse arrives well chilled. It is served with misanthropic aplomb…In Baby, I Don't Care, one of the most unusual and persuasive books of poems I've read in some time, Minnis is not merely conducting a droll séance with the help of Turner Classic Movies…As anyone who is familiar with her four earlier collections is aware, she's a provocative thinker about gender and poetry and the erotics of dislike…Her poems marinate in the sort of feelings you don't like to admit you have. There's a tang of Nietzsche in her antisocial desires, her amorality…In her direct access to pain and sometimes wit, her knack for absurdity and disturbance, she can resemble poets as diverse as Anne Sexton and Patricia Lockwood. She combines glamour and ordure in a manner that can resemble the prose of Ottessa Moshfegh.

The New York Times - Dwight Garner

★ 08/20/2018
Minnis (Poemland) impishly taunts the senses in this scintillating vaudeville of vice, greed, and sexism. Through the sassy, vamp-y, diamond-adorned persona of a self-proclaimed “hungry tigress,” readers are subjected to a sardonic, melodramatic monologue that was “inspired by classic movies” and often feels like a lucid dream. The book is divided into three sections, and the poems fall under the banners of such topics as “Success,” “Boredom,” “Seduction,” and “Depression.” In “Business,” Minnis astutely describes the role of narcissism in romantic love: “There’s a pretty good chance I love you,/ but I’ll have to take it up with my board of directors.” While analyzing “Greatness,” the speaker admits that even a single “word of praise would cause me to act contrary to my own self-interest,” and demands of her “darling” audience a synchronous, egalitarian schedule of physical reaction: “don’t start trembling without me.” She also describes intoxication as an insidious, empty promise: “Are we sleeping or dancing?/ Lunch is poured.// Aren’t I some kind of human being?/ Or am I just a dead swan?/ Baby, why aren’t we drunk?/ Am I swaying?” With an unparalleled sense of absurdist whimsy, Minnis runs through a litany of debaucherous and obsessive behaviors while engendering empathy, curiosity, and self-reckoning. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"In a flurry of ideas, and with her typically sparse and open-ended lines, Minnis approaches her subject from a dizzying array of angles: ironic, celebratory, mournful, panicked and often funny."—Publishers Weekly

"Poemland is written against the showboating profundity of other kinds of poetry, even as it embraces poetry like a toxic lover."—Poetry

From the Publisher