cover image Kiss Off: Poems to Set You Free

Kiss Off: Poems to Set You Free

. Warner Books, $14.95 (232pp) ISBN 978-0-446-69028-7

And when you've had enough and need to say goodbye to all that, there's Kiss Off: Poems to Set You Free, edited by Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash V lez, who brought you The Hell with Love: Poems to Mend a Broken Heart, and whom the press chat calls ""Georgetown University literature instructors, best friends, and proponents of `literary therapy.' "" They break the book into categories like ""Hurting: When Things Fall Apart,"" ""Reeling: When You Go Wild"" and ""Dealing: When You Face Facts,"" and include canonical and contemporary poems from everyone from Wang Wei to Claude McKay and Kim Konopka. By the time readers reach the ""Believing: When You Stay Strong"" section, they'll have absorbed a lot of poetry in the process of clearing the psychic decks.