"Collections of Madness: Amateur Experiments in Genius" begins with e-mail conversations between three poets, Jane, Asil, and Nod, as they contemplate the answers to life's most difficult questions. Together, they decide to write a book and let their findings be known.

The friends experience the universe together, but also individually on separate, bumpy paths. Jane, Asil and Nod share their insights, disillusionments, and life-changing epiphanies. In "Questions from the Lonely Girl," Jane Smith explores how she is learning to breathe her own eclectic beauty into the world. In Asil...