Leigh Stein at BOMBLOG

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This week’s installment of BOMB’s “Word Choice” is four poems by Leigh Stein, whose new collection, Dispatch from the Future, launches July 19th at Melville House.

The poems, like Stein’s debut novel, The Fallback Plan—a depiction of after-college limbo—strike a powerful balance between humor and melancholy, reference and storytelling. In “Epistolaphobia,” Stein reflects on the attraction to the dangerous:

“Sometimes we put ourselves / in danger just to live and tell about it. / And sometimes we put ourselves in danger / because our fathers betroth us to murderers.”

Walter Gordon is an intern at The Rumpus. He is a native of Berkeley, CA and goes to college in Oberlin, OH. He spends most of his time reading. His eyes hurt. Other hobbies include photography, writing fiction, and sitting on top of tall piles of rocks. More from this author →