What the Couch Told Me

The figure of infant Bukowski vomiting underneath the mistletoe; teenage breakups in the shade of scarlet oaks; begrudgingly kicking at Nothing lying dead on the floor-these are just a few examples of how the poems in this series strip away layers of what we think is beautiful, uncovering something timeless in the flaw of man. With a lighthearted and inviting range of diction and imagery, Gould interrogates the conditions we accept blindly, never attending to our own discovery of truth. Pitting the philosophical against the epistemological, What the Couch Told Me asks us to surrender deeply to the wisdom built into our neuroses-and to have the courage to face, and forgive, the self.