Tell Me

Poetry. Addonizio writes of herself, her passions and predicaments, without ever seeming 'confessional' or narcissistic, because what she relates is true of all mankind -- especially womankind -- Carolyn Kizer. Many of the poems in TELL ME can be read as intensified versions of the barroom ballad -- songs of good and bad love, songs of the allure and the failure of drink. But regardless of the subject, Kim Addonizio's poems are stark mirrors of self-examination, and she looks into them without blinking -- Billy Collins.

Kim Addonizio is the author of Tell Me, a finalist for the 2000 National Book Award for Poetry. She is co-author with Dorianne Laux of The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Addonizio’s first collection, The Philosopher’s Club, received the 1994 Great Lakes New Writers’ Award and a Silver Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California. She holds a master’s degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University and is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in San Francisco.