It's not you, it's me : the poetry of breakup

Intro Dedication Copyright Contents Introduction I: One Foot Out the Door Privilege of Being Sweet Ruin Tell Me, Black Heart I Want to Tell you Why Husbands Stop Loving Wives Curse Four: Orders for the End of Time Divorce Dream Intimacy Ex-Wife: Infatuation Bournehurst-On-The-Canal When a Woman Loves a Man Intimations of Infidelity Cross-Country Walking Home Across the Island The Night Before Leaving Self-Improvement Deep River Motor Inn After Summer Fell Apart Home Together Ex-Wife: Homesickness Reunions with a Ghost Coda Terrible Love Giving Myself Up II: In the Middle of the StormListene Slowly Adam and Eve Finished Minneapolis The Story The Pure Loneliness Song of An X Their Divorce The Monarchs: 44 The Sporting Life Dancer Holding Still Separated Father Fuck you Poem #45 So Long Lonely Avenue Through the Glass 5:14 From Chicago Breakdown You The End of the Affair Penis Envy After Mayakovsky Post-Thalamion Ghost Just That Empty Why I Will not Get out of Bed III: The Aftermath Ex-Boyfriends Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts Lover Release Agreement The Chair A Man Alone Dusk One Melody After What to Wear for DivorceGreen Couch Beginning with His Body and Ending in a Small Town Talking Richard Wilson Blues, by Richard Clay Wilson Longing Divorce The Monarchs: 47 Excavating the Ruins of Miami Beach Approach Heavy Trash Equitable Distribution A May-December Romance Straight Boyfriend Annulment The Gift All the Way from There to Here Jack Gilbert Lessening Spider Plant The Monarchs: 43 Half-Life Charades More or Less a Sorrow Jane Miller Sway The Monarchs: 20 Looking Down the Barrel Goodbye Blue Vase Part of Me Wanting Everything to Live At the End of the AffairLandscape with a Woman Permissions Acknowledgments About the Contributors From It's Not You, It's Me “This may be an anthology for anyone who’s been broken-hearted, but it’s not an anthology for anyone who’s faint-hearted . . . Superb” (Entertainment Weekly). It’s Not You, It’s Me is a poetry anthology—at once amusing, angry, sweet, and bitter—that gives a fresh voice to the all-too-familiar experience of ending a relationship. Williams has compiled over ninety poems by contemporary writers including Denis Johnson and Kim Addonizio, as well as former poets laureate Robert Hass, Maxine Kumin, and Mark Strand, whose comforting and healing words dragged him out of his breakup-induced depression. We have all been through a breakup, but these poems have created an art out of heartbreak: sharing their wisdom on the pain of the flip side of romance, and poking fun at the mess we become at the mercy of love. “This collection . . . gathers many of the poems that have helped Williams (a poet himself, with two books to his name) through his rooms of anguish over the years. Happily, they’re pretty great.” —The New York Times “In It’s Not You, It’s Me: The Poetry of Breakup today’s big contemporary poets make breaking up and even divorce sound painfully beautiful. You’ll want to read with a box of tissues, a pint of chocolate ice cream and sappy love songs playing in the background.” —Lemon Drop Literary It's Not You, It's Me is a poetry anthology--at once amusing, angry, sweet, and bitter--that gives a fresh voice to the all-too-familiar experience of ending a relationship. Williams compiled over 90 poems by contemporary writers including Denis Johnson and Kim Addonizio, as well as former poets laureate Robert Hass, Maxine Kumin, and Mark Strand, whose comforting and healing words dragged him out of his breakup-induced depression. We have all been through a breakup, but these poems have created an art out of heartbreak: sharing their wisdom on the pain of the flip side of romance, and poking fun at the mess we become at the mercy of love. An anthology of poetry that speaks to the experience of ending a romantic relationship, featuring the work of thirty-eight contemporary poets