{"product_id":"the-theory-of-flesh-francine-witte-9781950462278","title":"The Theory of Flesh","description":"Francine Witte's\u003ci\u003e The Theory of Flesh\u003c\/i\u003e is just that, an accumulation of poetic evidence for the absurdity and heartbreak that accompanies our mortal costumes. She moves from pre-history and history into the present and personal with the same sharp and incisive sense of description, the same savvy toward the fickle cosmos. Anxiety, crop failure, sibling rivalry, and small-town affairs-each is another hand-drawn entry on the larger human scroll. Witte, as they say, knows the score, and she's willing to share it with us, to describe in no uncertain terms exactly what it means to be us-damned from the very get go and further doomed by folly and fate. Yet important enough in our trials to command the fine poet's attention. \u003cp\u003e-Justin Hamm, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Inheritanc\u003c\/i\u003ee and \u003ci\u003eAmerican Ephemeral\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrancine Witte's poems are full of a compassion for our frail, vulnerable selves, our frail, vulnerable earth, and they are implicit with a forgiveness for that frailty and stupidity, like a teacher who refuses to hold her students' foolhardiness or idiocy against them. As she writes in \"Bravado\" \"Take away our medicines and guns, \/ and where are we, really? Not at the top \/ of the food chain, that's for sure. Our \/ teeth can barely tear a baguette, and forget \/ about breathing in the wrong stranger's \/ sneeze.\" In these poems, Witte goes straight for the elements that make up our lives, the love, the betrayal, the heartbreak; our weakness and our helplessness. Witte embraces our fallibilities. After all, \"Maybe this is all a game. Maybe we are the players, \/ or the pieces, or the lookers-on who shake their \/ heads and bring us snacks.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e-Charles Rammelkamp, author of \u003ci\u003e Me and Sal Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrancine Witte's literary voice is one of the strongest to emerge in the last few years. She combines sharp observations with a smart, biting sense of humor-her take on men and women in relationships is honest, and because of her intelligence, accurate. In \u003ci\u003e The Theory of Flesh, \u003c\/i\u003e she takes no prisoners! \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e-Ron Kolm, author of \u003ci\u003eNight Shift\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWelcome to the Barbecue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Francine Witte\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1950462277\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781950462278\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Kelsay Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/15\/2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 78\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.28lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.19d\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Francine Witte","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48440183816447,"sku":"9781950462278","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_f00687d4-880c-4493-98b9-26ee3fb1eeac.jpg?v=1777180738","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-theory-of-flesh-francine-witte-9781950462278","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}