Allison Pitinii Davis speaks Ohioan, as James Wright wryly put it, and gives us a world in this utterly fresh, well-crafted, and exhilarating debut volume.  —EDWARD HIRSCH, author of Gabriel

This comparative examination of the walking poems of Reznikoff and O’Hara constructs new avenues for exploring the urban poetics of outsiders in experimental poetry by reading across and not just through minority experiences.

Selections from Outskirts

"The Heart of It All + A Free Beer" (Originally printed in The Sycamore Review)

As the title Poppy Seeds suggests, Allison Davis's poems are hard and small and round enough to travel just about anywhere.
—KATHY FAGAN, author of Sycamore 
 

"Radii: For Sent Regrets"

"The Neighborhood Girls Ask Their Manager for a Raise"

Two poems from Lordstown Syndrome

"Old World Orthography"

"The Function of Humor in the Neighborhood"

"The Neighborhood Girls Caught Lordstown Syndrome," "The Neighborhood and Surrounding City, 1926-2019," “The Neighborhood Girls Fantasize About the WKBN Meteorologist,” “The Neighborhood Girls Ask the WKBN Meteorologist,” “10¢ Beer Night at Municipal Stadium, Cleveland, Ohio, June 4, 1974,” “The WKBN Meteorologist Finally Stops by the Dairy Queen,” “The Neighborhood Girls Go On Strike,” “The Neighborhood Girls Offer Me” 

"The Neighborhood Girls Sabotage the Dairy Queen Order"
Nominated for Best of the Net 2021

"The Motel Clerk's Son Drives Out to Check on Business, 1977" 
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Poems: "In the Begin­ning the Neigh­bor­hood Girls Read Philip Roth Drunk in Their Baths" and "The Goodyear Blimp Flies Over the Neighborhood Girls"
Essay: "Writ­ing the Jew­ish Rust Belt"
Reviews and author page
 

"On a Day Off, The Neighborhood Girls Try to Save the 1917 Paramount Theater" and "The Neighborhood Girls Can't Measure Up"

"The Neighborhood Girls Watch Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," and "The Neighborhood Girls Rise Like Man-Eating Zombies" (Verse Daily Web Weekly Feature, Nov. 19, 2018)
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"The Neighborhood Girls Play the Drinking Game Thunderstruck During the Thunderstorm While Watching WKBN First News Weather Updates,” “The Neighborhood Girls Yank on the Cigarette Machine During Their Partly Cloudy Smoke Break,” and “The Neighborhood Girls Take a Road Trip to Cleveland” 

“The Neighborhood Girls Fall for the WKBN Meteorologist" (read it here)

"The Neighborhood Girls Watch the New WKBN Meteorologist" 

"The Neighborhood Girls Split Tips After Their Shift, Late May" 

"The Marquee is Empty at the Big Rig Saloon"

“Waiting in the Midwest” 

“Greetings from 41°6′0″N 80°39′0″W,” “Last One Out Of Youngtown Turn Off The Lights,” “Swings, 1970,” and “Boom Boom"  

"In the Back of the Innkeeper's Mind, The Key Rack"

“Falls In Love, Or Reads Spinoza,” reprinted in Corpus Poeticum Spinozanum

“Night Portrait of a Motel Clerk” and “Ohio” 

Web Weekly Feature, November 19, 2018:  "The Neighborhood Girls Watch Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" 
 
“Beautiful, The Dead End" reprinted from Poppy Seeds

Poems: “Inheritance," “Arriving in Canada,” “Language Loosened Back,” “The Innkeeper Gets Bad Reception of Cleveland 100.7 FM,” “Dead Language,” “Song of the Dead Office,” and “Greetings from the End of the Line" 
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Essay: “The Ethics of Address: Writing to The Rustbelt in the Age of Trump"

Translation of "Songs of a Poorman 1 & 3" by Moyshe Kulbak from Yiddish

• Review by Timothy Otte at Stanza Break: Dispatches on Poetry

• “High culture takes on new meaning at local bars" by Grant Segall in The Plain Dealer (2020)​

• Review by Nina Murray on The Same (2018)

• Craft talk with Ryan Walsh at The Baoblog (2018)

• "The poetry of Youngstown" by Guy D’Astolfo in The Youngstown Vindicator (2017)

• Interview with Bailey Boyd at The Missouri Review (2017)

• Interview with Allison Reck at Midwestern Gothic (2017)

• Review and interview with Justin Goodman at The Compulsive Reader (2017)

• "The Aesthetics of Ruin: "Come rummage through our guts," by Rochelle Hurt at The Best American Poetry Blog (2014)

• Review of Poppy Seeds by Erica Spriggs in Poetry International Online (2015)