Crayon Colors for Serial Killers by Sue William Silverman

Crayon Colors for Serial Killers, true to its title, mixes childlike whimsy and mortal anger. In a time of pandemics of violence and viruses, unmasked systems of oppression and masked faces trying not to inhale, Sue William Silverman turns to haiku and persona poetry to settle and jostle our collective nerves. Her haiku, the Japanese poetic form of close attention, highlights our collective loneliness and sudden crystalline observation of a world gone scary-lonely: “Eat heart, soul, you sky-/eyed girl, ghost face unmasked glass / facade of cracked moon.” By contrast, “The Serial Killer” persona poems (another kind of masking) are fantastical romps through a woman’s daily encounters with others, imaginations of empowerment that hold off the fear and vulnerability that we’re all feeling these days.

–Philip Metres, author, Shrapnel Maps

Sue William Silverman’s Crayon Colors for Serial Killers scalpels into the dark corners of human experience. These sharp poems sting, menace, and reckon with the dread of our time.

–Tomás Q. Morin, author, Machete

“I love everything about this collection. The hothouse phrasing inside the elegant spareness on the page. The strange song of the ordinary. The natural wildness of the unspeakable. Every line in every poem in Crayon Colors for Serial Killers is jam packed with the music of life and devastation—Silverman its dazzling singer.”

–Alice Anderson, author, Some Bright Morning I’ll Fly Away