Un Poco Loco

Un Poco Loco is the companion volume to Lyons' previous collection Fleur Carnivore that won the 2005 Washington Prize from Word Works, Washington, D.C. This volume, though allusive, takes as its central metaphor the story of Jacob wrestling the angel. To do this, the volume enlists the company of a host of co-conspirators: visual artists like Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, jazz musicians like Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus, entertainers like Lenny Bruce and the Marx Brothers as well as writers like Cesare Pavese and Frank O'Hara. The conspiracy participates in the battle against intolerance and war often fueled by perverse myths of gender and race division. This volume also discovers at the heart of its demotic purpose the two-headed beast of pride and desire.