Brown, S: USA1000

Sass Brown's darkly funny debut collection of poems explores both the isolation and the absurdity of twenty-something apartment living. The world Brown creates in USA-1000 overflows with infomercials, classic Hollywood films, billboard messages, strip clubs, and fortune-tellers, illuminating our complex relationship with consumerism. In the absence of personal intimacy, everyday objects take on unexpected importance: the clothing of a would-be couple mingles in a washing machine; a father watches pornography in a hotel room with his wife and daughter; a woman searches a shopping mall to put on hold items she'll never buy; a broken hair dryer prompts a complaint letter to the Better Business Bureau. Brown's dazzling poems probe the disappointment of domestic reality in the face of America's glossy facade, abundance and emptiness hand in hand. Ultimately, the book finds beauty in the deliciously artificial and resurrects "the missing world" with words and memory.