Described as “melding fierce and heartbroken politics with a flair for the surreal” by Craig Morgan Teicher, English as a Second Language and Other Poems asks us to imagine the tender and harsh realities of this world within a single breath—a Steiff monkey resting next to a child in a crib and the tired hands of “a thousand women in Sidi Bouzid” assembling the stuffed animal. Coated in an armor of wit and humor and steeped in the idiosyncrasies of language, the collection pits sentimentality against cynicism and the personal against the national. What remains is the kaleidoscopic image of the modern American condition.

Jaswinder Bolina is the author of six books, including The 44th of July (Omnidawn, 2019), which was long-listed for the 2019 PEN America Open Book Award; Phantom Camera (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2013), winner of the 2012 Green Rose Prize in Poetry; Carrier Wave (Center for Literary Publishing, 2007), winner of the 2006 Colorado Prize for Poetry; and the digital chapbook The Tallest Building in America (2014). His poems and essays have been published widely.

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