In his new book, American Manscape, Daniel Romo gives his unconscious mind free rein. Half the fun of these poems is following the trail of his associations. “Is it wrong I find it so easy to root against perennials and pull for the weeds?” The other half of the fun is watching the poems come together to make, in the end, a sense you never saw coming, but love when it arrives. Romo will show you “how to separate the light from the dark, the pains from the stains” and have a good time doing it.

—Charles Harper Webb, author of The Elephant of Surprise

“That’s the strange terrain American Manscape wanders through: the everyman in all his confused, tender, and often absurd splendor. Daniel Romo’s poems don’t offer us updated versions of the old myths; instead, they deliver poignant dispatches from the newfangled now, where the speakers are half awake, half hopeful, fully online, and still capable of surprising themselves with small moments of wonder amid all this American noise. “

—Ryan Ridge