In Order to Form a More Perfect Union

“The reach of this exuberant and anguished book is potent, and made more so by the force of restraint. The subjects TJ Beitelman encounters here-beauty, love, sin, being, thought, felicity-are driven through the sieve of American culture, and out comes fragments, the leavings of what we were once instructed to value. Part of the edifice is gone, eroded, demeaned, cheapened, misused. At some point, however, the voice behind these deadpan yet lyrically fluid poems realizes how naïve it would be to reject outright the grace of descent, because that would erase the possibility of coming back. This is a book about coming back, coming back to being whole and wholly changed. And what a moving, intelligent, and measured book it is.”

-Maurice Manning

In Order to Form a More Perfect Union is a book obsessed with divisions…narrative ones, yes-love stories end in daggers, road trips end in cliffs…but also other sorts of fissures. When Beitelman writes the word half-hearted, he means not desultory but desperately searching (in material ranging pretty much from Homer to Hollywood) for the missing half.  And these breaks are, in his sensibility, ‘a blessed thing.’ It is spectacular to watch his poems upend everything. In this book, the paint squeezes its artist from the tube. The facts are not to be believed, but you will ardently believe that they are facts.”

-Darcie Dennigan

Jam-packed with the materials of American history and culture, TJ Beitelman’s poems are wonders to behold, set loose and spinning across forms, eras, and landscapes. From hopeful new-dawn visions to dark Jeremiads to softly flowing elegies, they capture voices and ideas from the main stems of American thought, with a smart, questioning energy that’s remarkable to follow. The book ultimately leads to a rocketing road trip into American politics, music, and dreams unlike any other you’ll ever find-hilarious, mysterious, brilliant and absurd in all the right ways, just like the U.S.A.”

-Jim Murphy