The poems in Arguments for Lawn Chairs take multiple positions. The poems in Arguments for Lawn Chairs don't trust your grandmother's cooking. They have visited Pangea, they have visited Toronto and Montreal, the B.C. Gulf Islands, Tiberias, the tailing ponds near Sudbury, and they are still not satisfied, are still unconvinced, still need more proof. They are suckers for dovetailed boxes, winter fire pits, houses that sit not quite true, a rent garbage bag spilling its guts on Queen Street. The poems in Arguments for Lawn Chairs have some choice words for Orpheus, for Eurydice, for Beowulf, for Dumbledore and Hermione. The poems in Arguments for Lawn Chairs are devoid of hope, but are joyful nonetheless.
Let soldiers stand for violence.
Let the suburbs stand for childhood.
Let paella stand for love.
Let zero stand for death.
Aaron Kreuter’s debut collection presents a new and playful voice – speaking clearly, convincingly – meditating on the environment, geopolitics, and personal identity. These poems engage with the confusions and contradictions of contemporary life in an age of networked subjectivity, but also consider urgent political concerns through poetic acts that reward our attention.
Stephen Cain, author of Torontology and I Can Say Interpellation