Tell Me

Kim Addonizio is the author of Tell Me, a finalist for the 2000 National Book Award for Poetry. She is co-author with Dorianne Laux of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Addonizio's first collection, The Philosopher's Club, received the 1994 Great Lakes New Writers' Award and a Silver Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California. She holds a master's degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University and is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in San Francisco.

From Library JournalTold in the cracked, smoky voice of someone who has loved and lost a lot and has come out the stronger for it these poems by the author of The Philosopher's Club and Jimmy & Rita crackle with energy yet do not betray the slightest slackening of craft. Addonizio moves from bars to caf?s to one-night stands and back to bars singing a sophisticated version of the blues. She may wonder "who has the time for anything/ but their own pleasures and sorrows," but her work never succumbs to melancholy.