Needs Improvement

Whether misreading sixth–grade pedagogical materials or offering visual schematics for reading Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, Jon Paul Fiorentino’s sixth poetry collection asks us to reconsider our engagement with received information — but does so with a wink during detention.

'Needs Improvement is as a book of a new logic making its way from witty statements to slow moving alyric villanelles, achieving brilliantly a contemporary sense of streaming among words, places and "no self." Whether this feeling comes from rearranged intentions, satirical knowledge, wise and displaced arguments, each page points a finger at language and does so with "no fears."'

— Nicole Brossard

'Jon Paul Fiorentino's new collection of poetry Needs Improvement contains some of his best and most important work yet … an intelligent, thought-provoking and sometimes humorous collection of mixed work that shows Fiorentino is a memorable voice all of his own.'

—The Uniter