Veronica Bench

Poetry. "Leopoldine never—as we used to say—’cops out.’"—Sparrow

"I like that Leopoldine’s last name is Core because that is what her poems are: essential (like heaven on earth) and ephemeral (as in apple core). Her talent’s in world-making, conjuring dialogic, chimeric moods that dust up an effet-monde only to let it drop casually, a strip-club curtain. Her zen-archery ease with poetry almost lets you forget how hard it really is to write like this: to be ’gutting with text’ one’s visions—writing not *about* God & sex but simply writing them. Her fluctuating registers and the sweet, cocky, somewhat lapidary sense of space on the page make me think of Han Shan or St. Giraud of the Naomi Poems. Core should write forever."—Ana Božicevic

"Leopoldine is not afraid to be funny, but her jokes have friction."—Sparrow

"’It’s important, you know,’ Core writes, ’for geniuses / to be sloppy / It makes other people brave.’ Well, I rolled around in her slop and found an ecstatic, fleshy tenderness. I wanted to lose whole days touching myself and reverting to my egg beginnings. Of course, these poems made me love her, made me think I was the only person in the world to ever fall in love this way. In VERONICA BENCH Core exposes us, out-greeds us, jokes freely with us and speaks better than us. You should be bathing with these poems, you should rub up against them, you should examine your own monstrosity more, you should dote on your pain, you should be ashamed you ever were ashamed of being meat, you should let others record your girlhood, your infancy, your fullness, you should stop trying to be a better person before you die, you should read this book until it’s memorized and then we can all be blissed out in its captivity."—Jenny Zhang

"It’s hard to read these poems without falling in love—at least for an afternoon—with Leopoldine. She isn’t speaking so much as flying."—Sparrow