What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria

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Obsessive love has never been so much fun! What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria is a powerful tribute to the intensity of obsessive love, told through the trademark humor and heartbreak of bestselling poet Kim Dower.

Following the commercial and literary success of her bestselling poetry collection, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom: Poems on Motherhood, Kim Dower delivers What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria-turning her keen eye, vibrant imagination, trademark insight, and humor to the intensity of obsessive love. These steamy and provocative poems, combining humor and heartache, run through the four phases of Limerence, the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person: Infatuation, Crystallization, Deterioration, and Ecstatic Release. From the opening poem, "She'll do anything for food," to the sexy title poem, "What She Wants," the painfully funny, "His Other Girlfriend," to the longing in "Visiting Baudelaire," and the sad, sweet final poem, "Fish's Lament," Kim Dower captures the essence of what it means to be stuck on someone-even on a squirrel! Her eclectic, growing readership will savor these poems that can be read in one sitting, like a story with an arc, or separately, each one recalling the moment of falling in or out of love, the moment our hearts skipped a beat.

Reviews

Praise for What She Wants

Desires, both feral and mundane, are slung across these pages in a crescendo of sexual longing and urgent vitality. There's something gleeful in the undercurrent of darkness that runs through these verses.Amanda Youngman, Store Manager, Barnes & Noble at The Grove

"Psychologically astute and playfully resolute at evoking the irrevocable desire for love, attraction, seduction, and yes, companionship, What She Wants belongs on every bookshelf: not just for poetry lovers. But the poetry is there, singing its echoing delight through the lines, like desire itself, and enticing, resolving, and picturing the myriad ways we are compelled by desire and all its fruits. John Evans, Diesel Bookstore

Kim Dowercaptures the timeless art of storytelling through versewithraw and unfiltered emotions, lyrical language, and vivid imagery. With every turn of the page, readers will find themselves drawn deeper into a world where words hold the power to inspire, delight, and transform.Julie Slavinsky, Director of Events, Warwicks Bookstore

"From whispered secrets to consuming obsessions, these poems unveil the complexities of love, longing, and the urgency that prods us to pursue the objects of one's desire."Luisa Smith, Buying Director, Book Passage Bookstore

Unexpected and sublime.O Magazine

Sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combines humor and heartache.The Los Angeles Times

A dark chocolate fever dream of love. Kim Dower dares you into the dark.Erica Jong, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller Fear of Flying

A kind of miracle . . .Thomas Lux, Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Winner and Guggenheim Fellow

Bold and sexy and smart.Stephen Dunn, 2001 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Poetry

A moving blend of sexual experimentation and loss.Library Journal

Absolutely charming and compelling, accessible and profound, combining humor and heartbreak, while exploring the personal and universal.Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author

Like the voice of an old, trusted friend who knows you, who has come to visit and remind you of who you are and what a life is all about. Poems that speak not of the highs and lows, but about the grey space between tragedy and tenderness, memory and loss, fragility and perseverancethat space where the soul and the truest self live.Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet

Beware Kim Dowers poetry. Again and again, this crafty writer invites you in for a casual chat and then wallops you . . . This fantastic collection revolves around quotidian details of domestic life, but existential questions are always lurking beneath the surface.The Washington Post

Widely admired for her ability to texturize the everyday with the sublime, Kim Dower captures with poetic grace exquisite remembrances of childhood with vibrant imagery. These gorgeous gems are energized by the sheer power of her wit and irreverent style.Shelf Awareness

Deftly constructed, inherently interesting, impressively insightful, thought-provoking, and truly memorableThe Midwest Book Review

By turns exuberant, sexy and sobering, Kim Dowers remarkable poems are known for their extraordinary range. Attuned to theoddness of the quotidian and grounding the metaphysical in the sharp sensations of daily life, her poems invite us to live as fully and generously as the poet herself.Chris Kraus, bestselling author of I Love Dick and After Kathy Acker

Author Bio

Kim Dower, born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is the former City Poet Laureate for West Hollywood, California. She is the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including the Los Angeles Times bestseller and 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom; the 2020 Gold IPPY Awards winner, Sunbathing on Tyrone Powers Grave; Air Kissing on Mars; and Slice of Moon. Dowers poems have been featured on Garrison Keillors The Writers Almanac and Ted Koosers American Life in Poetry, as well as in many anthologies and journals, including Ploughshares, James Dickey Review, Plume, and Barrow Street. She teaches poetry workshops for Antioch University, UCLA Extension, and the West Hollywood Library. Kim lives with her family in West Hollywood, California.