About the Book:

Everything I Know … 
The new chapbook of poems by Anthony Frame, in which a suicidal astronaut tries to eat a banana, the Lincoln Memorial is turned into a drag queen dance hall, Kermit the Frog dabbles in existentialism, and Marvin Gaye covers Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.”

Anthony Frame has a gift for pushing the envelope of the list poem, creating a richly imagined series of poems that are remarkable, refreshing and joyous. Frame turns the Americana of Kurt Cobain, Buffy, Survivor, Chaz Bono, air guitar, bumper stickers and more into a breathtaking experience, where we get inside the “scream… boiling beneath” Kermit the Frog, discover Ron Jeremy’s sexual act is “almost iambic” and superhero masks have “eyeholes as Freudian mirrors.” The genius is in the line Frame walks between playful and serious, between poetic and casual. “When I die, prove / once and for all the primacy of metaphors.” This book has done so and more.

—Matthew Silverman, author of The Breath Before Birds Fly

Everything I Know I Learned From Anthony Frame. This book teaches us it’s all semiotics and mythographies. The symbols we are, the couplets we make are all footnotes elsewhere. Here is a poet who is trying to trace himself back to himself, to find the name behind the names, to understand the why of the whys. Is he successful? He shows us he is, but makes us question it. Let this book show you Anthony Frame. He knows himself and he is unashamed.

—Dan Nowak, author of <em “mso-bidi-font-style:=”” normal”=””>Recycle Suburbia and The Hows and Whys of My Failures

Acknowledgements:

My deepest thanks to the editors of the following publications where some of these poems originally appeared:

Blue Lyra Review: (“Everything I Know I Learned from Kermit the Frog”) burntdistrict: (“Everything I Know I Learned from Rachel Maddow”) Linden Avenue Literary Journal: (“Everything I Know I Learned from Bumper Stickers”) The Lake: (“Everything I Know I Learned from Playing Air Guitar”) The Meadow: (“Everything I Know I Learned from Chaz Bono”) Prime Number Magazine: (“Everything I Know I Learned from Survivor”) Redactions: Poetry, Poetics & Prose: (“Everything I Know I Learned from The Dream Songs”)   “Everything I Know I Learned from Superhero Comic Books” appeared in Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books (Minor Arcana Press, 2014). Thank you to the editors, Brian D. Dietrich and Marta Ferguson.   “Everything I Know I Learned from Lazarus” was released as a broadside by Yellow Flag Press. Thank you to J. Bruce Fuller for your beautiful work on the poem.   “Everything I Know I Learned from Rachel Maddow” was reprinted in Verse Daily.   “Everything I Know I Learned from The Dream Songs” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the Contributing Board of the Pushcart Prize.   “Everything I Know I Learned from Norma Jeane Jaworski,” “Everything I Know I Learned from Rachel Van Sickel,” and “Everything I Know I Learned from Coffee House Poetry Readings” were originally written as part of Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project, a fundraising poetry marathon where poets are asked to write a poem a day for an entire month.

Thank you to Jeffrey Levine, Kirsten Miles and Marie Gauthier for their encouragement and dedication.   I also wish to thank my friends, colleagues and family members who were unaware that I was using their conversations, emails and Facebook posts to inspire these poems. Thank you Holly Burnside, Dan Nowak, Jonathan Schnapp, Teniece Durrant Delgado, Adam Tavel, Lisa Fay Coutley, Rachel Van Sickle, Michael Kocinski, Danielle Jaworski, Rick and Mary Jo Frame, Nick and Aimee Frame, BJ Gall, Michael Gall, and Derrick Case.

Learn more about Anthony here.