The Problem with Solitaire

From possible apocalypse to the all-night pie diner--from the moon landing, to memory, to the cat's take on death--The Problem With Solitaire considers the question: when we play against ourselves, who wins? with curiosity, compassion, and a stubborn refusal to flinch. Less interested in finding answers than pursuing the paradox itself, Lucia Misch's poetry travels through landscapes actual, internal, and imagined with unorthodox insight and wit. Biography, body, meaning, depression, power, grief, self-determination, and disaster are just some of the themes that ride shotgun.

About the Author :
Lucia Misch is a poet and performer from the Bay Area who lives and works on the unceded homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh people (colonially known as Vancouver). Since getting her start as a young spoken word artist in California, she has brought her writing to stages across North America. In 2011, she placed second in the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam and continues to share her work at events ranging from literary festivals to labor union conventions, from showcases in ornate theatres to house shows in someone's basement.

Review :
"These poems do what your creative writing teacher told you not to do--but secretly hoped you would. They break conventions in ways that are both surprising and appropriate. If it's true that author and reader compose a poem together, Lucia uses this to make you a better writer--a better imaginer of things both foreign and familiar. She uses the quotidian to confront us with the experience of being something other than one's own self, but provides the tools to do this safely. This book is the mask that lets you breathe when the house is on fire, the glasses that let you watch the eclipse." -David Perez, Santa Clara County Poet Laureate (2014-2016), Author of Love In A Time Of Robot Apocalypse "Lucia Misch has written us a gift of tender beauty. In her poem 'What I Took From My Mother' Misch writes of "the habit of arranging small objects into altars, readying every room for an offering." The poems in this collection do not stray from this habit. Each resonates with the light of an altar, preparing The Problem With Solitare as an offering to the lives and loves that inhabit our spaces. I am certain that if you carry this book with you for a whole year, you will come to know how the poem can be prayer and be ever the more grateful for the way these words bend and give themselves to the spaces of your life." -Mary Pinkoski, City of Edmonton Poet Laureate (2013-2015), Canadian National Spoken Word Festival Champion & Most Valuable Poet of the Festival (2011) "How lucky we are to witness this visceral translation of fear, power, grief, and exhilarating joy onto the page. Lucia Misch's debut is a long-awaited celebration of her craft as a veteran performer and poet." -Leah Horlick, author of For Your Own Good and Riot Lung, winner of the 2016 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers