Author Description

The poems in How to Be an American strike the chords of conversations we should be having, should have already had and resolved, or conversations that should be irrelevant. In this generation’s remake of democracy, Malinenko’s book is an incendiary device. —Jason Baldinger, author of The Lower Forty-Eight Ally Malinenko is the embodiment of what E.L. Doctorow meant when he said we need writers because we need witnesses to this terrifying century. In How to Be an American, she dissects the American dream and breaks it down to its petri-dish truths. Malinenko’s America is a country that exports ignorance and consumerism, where the greatest embarrassment is to be poor, vulnerable, and in need. In a voice as direct and unstoppable as an ambulance, Malinenko paints a raw, visceral, and essential portrait of a country without pity, without compassion, and makes the need for change feel like the emergency it is. —Lori Jakiela, author of Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe Ally Malinenko has an exceptional ability to observe life and write honestly. She is an absolute treasure. —Moriah LaChapell, editor of The Blue Hour This is a devastating book that reads as the polar opposite of Walt Whitman—here, the speaker does not see herself of them, these demented Americans. Here, the speaker rises up and says to the Bible and all its believers, to the box stores and all their consumers, to the patriots and all their patriotism, “Absolutely not.” The country inside these pages is lit up like a Walmart commercial and packed with the same ugliness that makes minimum wage unlivable and bargain shoppers unbearable. The loudest voices are all dressed up in stars-and-stripes bikinis, shouting about how great it is to be red-white-and-blue, while the rest of us rape and kill and need a drink to stand the sights. Here are poems that say, “Enough,” that say, “Quit insulting the world.” Watch out, America. Ally Malinenko’s poems are dodgeballs and sh