Perfume & Cigarettes

The poems in Perfume & Cigarettes by Madeline Levy come at you like Tom Waits driving a 1957 Cadillac onto the sleek asphalt of night, with only the red glow of taillights sending kisses on the road to everywhere. These poems take us places, somewhere between the proper and the profane, the dive bars and the five-star restaurants. These are poems with wicked grins and sharp edges that will leave a “tiny-sized cut in the back of your heart,” and make us believe that “apple pie & cyanide” are a good idea. Madeline Levy is a new and true voice in American poetry who leaves cigarette burns on our crooked wings, yet we still offer to buy her a new pack.