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Verse novel. A brutal story about love and addiction.
Such a haunting portrait of pain and intimacy.
Reminded me of Gifford's Sailor and Lula.
Jimmy and Rita is raw and engaging. It goes quickly, but its intensity and tragic moments persevere. These poems are used as a storytelling device, and their connections to each other make this both unique and intriguing.
I think I've now read every book of poetry by this wise, fearless chronicler of the blues. If there's one I've missed, I'll go get it. These are characters we love for all their flaws, and root for, and watch make bad choices, and yet we turn the page and want more. I can't think of another poet writing today who makes me yearn so deeply for her subjects' redemption, however small or short-lived it may be.
This book made me very sad, in a painfully beautiful way. Addinizio’s language is lovely. Not my usual fare, but I found myself thinking about Jimmy and Rita, and my own privilege, long after turning the last page.
This 2000 volume of poetry was a finalist for the National Book Award and I can see why.It is a book-length study of a couple of lovers, working-class and very poor. A portraitof the sometimes limited options for under-educated young people. It is cinematic in scopeas every detail feels palpable and vividly present. Quite a feat I think to sustain sucheffort throughout the young trajectory of these two lives.
This is a brutal little story in verse about two herion-addicted alcoholics in love.
Needles, seedy bars and broken childhoods connect the lives that Kim Addonizio introduces us to. Noisy shelters, strip joints and cheap rooms with sheets for curtains set the scenes. This is the true world of tough love and futureless dreams. A gripping collection of poems woven from tears and scars.
An amazing novel-in-verse.So resonant, honest and lucid as to be almost frightening.Undoubtedly, some savvy producer will one day make "Jimmy and Rita" into a feature film. It has the feel of a great poetry collection and screenplay wrapped into one.A must read for any admirer of Kim Addonizio's work.
A narrative story, told in verse, about two desperate souls who love each other and who are both fighting the sickness of addiction and poverty. It's a gut punch of a read, a difficult story told beautifully. The less is more vibe you get from each piece in this story works so well and you pray, I think, that someone doesn't try and turn this into a movie or a TV series. The small moments here create a wider canvas than anything else ever could. I took a writing class earlier this year that intr...
Gritty and hard but I'll be damned if I didn't shoot it straight, right down my throat.
Remember Kim Addonizio’s verse novel, Jimmy & Rita?I do! And it’s still “Silk” in my book.I’ve used it in a couple of my classes at Marist College, and I’ve written about a few of the poems in the collection. I have to be honest; it’s a phenomenal poetry book and a raw and moving verse novel for adults. Even Addonizio’s “sequel” to Jimmy & Rita (BOA Editions, 1997), her novel My Dreams Out in the Street, (Simon & Schuster, 2007) just doesn’t live up to the wonderful language and uncontrived stor...
This cycle of poems tells a somewhat interesting, somewhat banal story of an obviously doomed relationship. As poetry I wasn't that impressed. I think this would have made a better novel than a book of poems.
The pieces in this collection tell the story of Rita and Jimmy, a young couple struggling with identity, drugs and sexuality. The point of view is intriguing, as the voice moves between 1st person/3rd person. There are some beautiful, haunting images. I would recommend this book to people who do not typically like poetry, as it reads much like a collection of short stories.
Note (not a review): The title has an ampersand. Jimmy & Rita. It is just missing on Goodreads for some reason.
Unlike many verse novels, this stands up as poetry. At less than 90 pages, the story is a thin slice of the lives of Rita and Jimmy, who live hard lives, love each other while moving closer and further apart. Fans of Ellen Hopkins may move onto this eventually, but Addonizio isn't as generous with narrative. Hopkins tells a story; Addonizio hints at hers. Readers have to connect the dots, piecing together the story from bits and shards. The explicit nature of the book will make it unlikely for m...
Whitman's famous proclamation "Through me the many long dumb voices," depending on how it strikes the ear, echoes either with self-aggrandizement, a song that appropriates everything within shouting distance to swell its own puny notes, or with self-erasure, negative capability yawped with a barbarously American accent. The latter inflects the various voices of JIMMY & RITA, the second full-length collection by Kim Addonizio, whose THE PHILOSOPHER'S won the 1994 Great Lakes' New Writer Award. In...
2/2010: Do you know how much I love this? I can't even begin to tell you what "good" poetry is or isn't. I just know this touched me deeply, and that's "good" enough for me.2/2010: Finally got it!!! Woot! Squee! And all other internet expressions of joy!11/2008: I WANT this book!!!!! I heard one of the poems ("Shelter") on the Writer's Almanac on NPR and was totally devastated by it.Did I say I MUST have this book????
She's an amazing writer who is not afraid of risks (all types). This book just isn't my favorite. Perhaps it's just the subject matter is hard for me to take...but I don't think that's the reason (look at what else I read...).Maybe I need to re-read it and re-assess the poems and the narrative. I really enjoy most of her work.
