Wallop

Poetry. An iceberg celebrates, by accident, its birthday. The highway patrol approach a wet sofa left by the side of the road, discussing later what they could've done better with their heat. Jordan Stempleman's newest collection, WALLOP, crunches through the dirty snow of trying to love when love is gone, heaving from room to room, humming from joke to dark, car to gym, chainsaws and milkweed, bathroom faucets that fall apart in your hands, history private and public, men shaving in the public water fountain. No one is saying health even happens, but if it did, it might happen like Stempleman says: 'There are stupid things we put in us. / Some of these things go from stupid to nothing. / A few never really leave.'