Anthony Frame | A Generation of Insomniacs

Full-length Book ISBN: 978-1-59948-462-4 Publisher: Main Street Rag Publications Anthony Frame's A Generation of Insomniacs is a tough book that earns its toughness only so it can break your heart. Terse, tight, honest, unflinching — these poems search for authenticity in a world filled with dishonesty and hypocrisy, and isn't this the job of any poet? While this book is generational — the generation of Kurt Cobain and grunge — it explores the complex world of adolescence with compassion and authenticity that cross all boundaries of time and place. Frame is an astute chronicler of his generation, and his place, Toledo, Ohio, with a keen eye for the telling detail — these poems jump off the page, they sizzle and crackle with electric life. — Jim Daniels, author of Birth Marks Order from Main Street Rag Publications

"How to Write a Poem in Toledo, Ohio" from diode "The Legal Team of Nietzsche, Freud, Darwin and Marx" from Pirene's Fountain "Last Day of Childhood, Nearly Thirteen" from Blood Orange Review

It wasn't about not bathing or drying our hair into twigs. We wanted to hear mortality in the opening notes of "Today." Like the paraplegic at the free Smashing Pumpkins show who body surfed in his wheelchair, head banging a path to the stage, our generation swimming in sky. So we drove our nights deep into the suburbs, treating the stars like fireworks. And, lacking cows but not clouds, we tipped over port-o-johns while singing: I can't wait for tomorrow. I might not have that long. That boy became our legend as Billy Corgan held him on stage, the wheelchair swallowed below, sweat and wind washing us clean.