A CBC Books' Poetry Collection to Watch for in Spring 2024 • A Toronto Star Most Anticipated Spring Title

We’re in love, but we’re still Millennials. / What’s wrong with our hearts is congenital. 

In Barfly, the poet comes back to haunt himself, and us. In this incomparable third collection, his first in a decade, Michael Lista returns to reinvent poetry with humour, pugnacity, and a deeply singular voice. Splicing Byronic rhymes and Auden’s meters with the twenty-first century irreverence of a late-stage Twitter feed, the poems in Barfly are alternatingly aggressive, sweet, deadly, and raw with a break-your-heart vulnerability.

"We're in love, but we're still Millennials. / What's wrong with our hearts is congenital. Splicing Byronic rhymes and Auden's meters with twenty-first century irreverence and the profane juxtaposition of a late-stage Twitter feed, the poems in Barfly, Michael Lista's third collection, are alternately aggressive, humane, LOL funny, and raw with break-your-heart vulnerability."--