Cold Genius

The United Fruit Company during the Cold War; two myths about the discovery of laughter. Tender love lyrics in a domestic setting; vows of love are exchanged. An extended verse essay on tickling. Like Antonin Scalia, this book believes in the devil. The human soul figures.

“Aaron Kunin, odd funny grim philosopher poet, brilliant and heartbreaking.”
—Catherine Wagner

“Who put this clipboard in my hand? What is that chemical odor? Why am I wearing this white coat? Kunin’s Cold Genius tweezers deep feelings. It startles with pleasure and squeakes with pain through a relentless formal labyrinth. He is a master of the awkward sublime, poetry at its most clinical. I take pleasure in it, and that troubles me.”
—Jennifer Moxley

“Aaron Kunin keeps me honest—his reading, the extremity of his intelligence, the radical rigor (and weird humor) of his poetry and prose. His Learnedness is almost anachronistic and yet I feel like he might, except for his lack of cynicism, be my most contemporary contemporary. I look up to him. it occurs to me often to be grateful for his work.”
—Ben Lerner 

Aaron Kunin is author of two previous collections, and a professor at Pomona College.