Previous praise:
Some poets are cutters, others are curers, showing up to every occasion like a condolence-wisher with a casserole. Chelsey Minnis is firmly in the first category. Her verse arrives well chilled. It is served with misanthropic aplomb. . . . Her poems marinate in the sort of feelings you dont like to admit you have. Theres a tang of Nietzsche in her antisocial desires, her amorality. Minnis is a bored, fierce, literate attendee at what the poet Frederick Seidel has referred to as lifes cotillion. Dwight Garner, New York Times [ Minnis] has more killer lines per square-foot than Seidel even. Her subject is poetry, its awfulness, its pretensions, its business, and she arrives armed. Sam Riviere, The Quietus If you agree with Aristotle when he writes in the Poetics that the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor and that such mastery is a sign of genius, then you might also agree that Chelsey Minnis is a brilliant mastermind. Chris Tonelli, Black Ocean The great substance of Minniss writing is what she can do without typical poetic accoutrement. No vivid imagery, no rhyme or meter, no real sonic resonance, just honest language stripped apart and put back together in a way that is rarely seen: honestly. Cannoli Pie
Minnis excels at teetering in perfect balance between the childishly vapid and the ultimately truthful. Elisa Gabbert, Open Letters
Minnis mixes the postmodern with the nearly archaic: her exclamatory lines contain an almost troubadour-like quality in their exuberance for announcing their thoughts. Publishers Weekly
