Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Poetry [Paperback]

“Tao Lin's poetry passes by slacker era irony and self–indulgent formalism to dig up something deeper and more human, even when that something seems on first reading to merely be depressed hamsters.”
—Jeffrey Brown, author of Clumsy and Little Things

“I hope this new publisher uses my blurb this time. I was a little sad that the other one didn't use it. They could have sold tens of copies if they'd put my blurb on that book. But this book is better; these poems are serious and funny and more than they appear. I am a big fan of Tao Lin's writing and this book makes me happy.”
—Matthew Rohrer, author of A Green Light and Rise Up

"A revolutionary."-The Stranger

"Stimulating and exciting."-The San Francisco Bay Guardian

"Tao Lin writes from moods that less radical writers would let pass-from laziness, from vacancy, from boredom. And it turns out that his report from these places is moving and necessary, not to mention frequently hilarious."-Miranda July, author of No One Belongs Here More Than You

Tao Lin-author of the underground sensation Eeeee Eee Eeee-continues his deadpan existential-slapstick style with poems featuring titles such as: "I will learn to love a person and then I will teach you and then we will know" and "hamsters are heads with little characteristics on the head, part one."

It is, in short, a book of poetry in which the author attempts in a calm, sympathetic, and at times sarcastic tone, to explain to himself the possible origins and cures of anger, worry, frustration, obsession, and confusion-while concurrently experiencing those things.

Tao Lin is the poetry editor for 3 a.m. magazine, and proprietor of the blog Reader of Depressing Books. His stories and poems have appeared in Mississippi Review, Cincinnati Review, Other Voices, Punk Planet, and many other magazines. Lin, author of the novel Eeeee Eee Eeee and the short story collection Bed, was born in 1983.

Tao Lin was last year's winner of NYU's Undergraduate Creative Writing Prize. He is the poetry editor for 3 a.m. magazine, and proprietor of the book blog ReaderofDepressingBooks.com. His stories and poems have appeared in Mississippi Review, Cincinnati Review, Other Voices, Punk Planet, and many other magazines. Tao was born in 1983.