Borrowing its title from an Ennio Morricone ditty in the spaghetti western Gunfight at Red Sands, Jennifer L. Knox's A Gringo Like Me contains poems at once raucous and sexy, tender and high. In favorites such as "Hot Ass Poem," "Cruising for Prostitutes," and "Chicken Bucket," Knox's speakers appear ornery, hickish, undereducated, misogynist, or worse, but each quirky character manages to elucidate a truth we're better off knowing, even if we'd rather forget it. At other times, Knox's lyrical "I" is downright pretty; in poems like "A Common American Name" and "Freckles" she charms. Knox has...

Did somebody say Jen Knox's poems "read like Richard Pryor with an MFA"? Yes, somebody did. (It was John Findura in Verse Magazine.) She's also been compared to comedian Sarah Silverman, artist Jeff Koons, a 10-year-old who can't keep her mouth shut, and cartoonist R. Crumb. None of these equations is quite right, however. Jennifer L. Knox's work is unmistakably her own: darkly hilarious, surprisingly empathetic, utterly original. DRUNK BY NOON is the eagerly awaited sequel to Knox's first book, A GRINGO LIKE ME, which is also available from Bloof in a new edition. Jennifer L. Knox is a...

In The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway, Jennifer L. Knox expands on her inimitable cast of characters, in hilariously poignant poems. In poems like "Marriage" and "One Ton of Dirt," Knox ventures further into autobiographical territory than she's ever gone before, in ways that will startle those familiar with her previous books, exploring relationships with her exes, her parents, and her younger self. Like the best comedians (to whom she's often compared), Knox is never merely funny. Each of her speakers, even the bedraggled coyote that walks into a Quizno's, has something important to say....