Cactus as Bad Boy

Frank and funny, Cactus as Bad Boy sings in the light of a closely-observed world. In these poems Vespoli explores what it means to be a woman in modern-day America, dating again after a long marriage, finding love amidst COVID, quarantines, zoom, and the "masked employees at Jiffy Lube." She moves seamlessly between the outer world and intimate revelations; when she considers how she's "gone in and out / of love with the penis / depending on who / it was attached to," her candor makes me feel less alone. Cactus as Bad Boy is an absolute delight!

-Michaela Carter, author of Leonora In the Morning Light


These delicious, darkly humorous poems offer an intimate look at love, loss, solitude, kids, dogs, men, women, and the whole catastrophe. Playfully inventive in language and form, they invite us to romp and wrestle, then leave little puppy teeth marks on our heart. Love bites.

-Alison Luterman, author of In the Time of Great Fires