FREEDOM OF SPEECH is for Liam Rector.
The title YOU HAVE HARNESSED YOURSELF RIDICULOUSLY TO THIS WORLD was suggested by a one-line entry (no. 44) in Franz Kafka’s “Reflections” collected in his Blue Octavo Notebooks.
The poem MEDITATION ON THE SOURCES OF THE CATASTROPHIC IMAGINATION was, in part, suggested by W. G. Sebald’s book-length poem, After Nature.
Some phrases in OF RICKEY RAY RECTOR are taken from Marshall Frady’s “Death in Arkansas” (The New Yorker, 22 February 1993). “Staff Personnel Reports” in the poem are quoted from the journals guards kept on death row.
MOON RIVER is for Franz Wright.
Italicized lines in THREE MEMORIES OF HEAVEN are from Rafael Alberti’s poem “Three Remembrances of Heaven.”
HELLO BABIES, WELCOME TO EARTH is a line from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1965 novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
BIRD, SINGING is for Jason Shinder.
The phrase ON HAVING CONTRACTED THE HABIT OF BELIEVING IN THE INTERIOR WORLD was suggested by Julio Cortázar’s poem “Instructions on How to Cry.”
CONSIDERING THE POSSIBLE MUSIC OF YOUR HAIR is a phrase adapted from Rafael Alberti’s “Three Remembrances of Heaven.”
WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE is the title of Shirley Jackson’s final novel, published in 1962.
The title A CAGE GOES IN SEARCH OF A BIRD is adapted from a one-line entry (no. 16) in Franz Kafka’s “Reflections” collected in his Blue Octavo Notebooks.