Local Asheville poet Brandon Amico will read from his debut collection of poems, Disappearing, Inc. (published by Gold Wake Press, March 2019). The reading will be followed by a Q&A with the audience and then a book signing.

Disappearing, Inc. interrogates our fragmented and relentless moment in American history, one that constantly breaks down the self in order to analyze and assign value to our constituent parts—what poet Michael Bazzett (author of The Interrogation and You Must Remember This from Milkweed Editions) calls “the media-technogasm of 21st century capitalism” in his praise for Amico’s poems, which “crackle with energy as they joke and juke their way to exploring what it means to live a fully human life” today.

Tackling everything from dying bees and a crumbling climate to technology, self-worth, and self-preservation, Disappearing, Inc. weaves tenderness, humor, wistfulness, and anger without sacrificing poetry’s crucial sense of curiosity. Karen Skolfield, author of the Barnard Women Poets Prize-winning Battle Dress (W. W. Norton, 2019), says: “Just like the targets of every clever marketing pitch, readers of Brandon Amico’s debut book can’t help but buy into his wit, his keen eye for the insidious in the everyday, his understanding of loneliness in a throng, his attention to language.”