leaving a tip at the Blue Moon Motel

Shortlisted for the 34th annual Reading the West Book Award in poetry.

This newest collection from Richard Vargas stands chest-to-chest with the realities of the American working class. At once acerbic and tender, the poems swell with curiosity and compassion for the people living in a culture designed to milk them dry. Vargas writes with humor, with wonder, with wickedness and guileless admiration, acknowledging those whose lives are seldom glamorized.