{"product_id":"bad-ideas-9780889713260","title":"Bad Ideas","description":"\u003cp\u003eNobody knows bad ideas quite like Michael V. Smith. In his new collection of poetry, he speaks to an intangibility of sense, or a sense beyond the rational. \u003cem\u003eBad Ideas\u003c\/em\u003e explores the inevitability of loss and triumph with characteristic irony and tenderness. Through this dazzling collection of a remembered life, hung out to ogle like laundry on the line, Smith recalls a mother who discovers a sex tape, a man who dreams of birthing his own son and a woman who blends her baby girls into milkshakes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBad Ideas\u003c\/em\u003e is a testament to how an altered perspective effects change, how stories can be recast. The collection forms itself into an exercise in which optimism is a practiced art recaptured in dreams and prayers and combined to acknowledge the unknowable, the contradictory, the ungraspable: An evening is composed \/ in a hundred unchoreographed \/ dramas; I pull a Clark Kent \/ transform, dressed as a monk \/ in burgundy and gold robes. I think \/ this will protect me, but it doesn't; Dear Hatred, sweet \/ Hatred, do you not move our enemies \/ to know us better? Hyperbolic and sincere, this collection brawls with the unquantifiable themes of family, loneliness and love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSmith, Michael V.:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMichael V. Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, performance artist and occasional clown. He is the author of several books including \u003cem\u003eWhat You Can't Have\u003c\/em\u003e (Signature Editions, 2006), which was short-listed for the ReLit Award, and \u003cem\u003eMy Body Is Yours\u003c\/em\u003e (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015), which was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. He is also the winner of the inaugural Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers and was nominated for the Journey Prize. Smith currently teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus in Kelowna. \u003cem\u003eBad Ideas\u003c\/em\u003e is his latest collection of poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nightwood Editions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50492218540306,"sku":"9780889713260","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_9fdd3640-f05c-4bd9-bf38-fe1abde488ec.jpg?v=1730577562","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/bad-ideas-9780889713260","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}