Let's Become a Ghost Story

“No one knows who’s lonelier:
the ghost or the person who sees the ghost.”

Let’s Become

a Ghost Story

is Rick Bursky's 

best (and longest)

work yet.

His fourth collection

of poetry

(and his first

since 2015)

is autobiographical,

magical, packed

with tall tales

both touching and sad.

images taken from Bursky’s incredible IG

It’s full of fading

family postcards

and smeared lipstick.

A sister who

has passed,

a father who

has passed,

a missing ear,

a submarine, a fake

doctor, and many women

no longer hanging

in the framed painting.

When I interviewed

Bursky back in 2018,

the manuscript

was titled

Where the Ocean

Spills its Grief,

and I love

the progression

since that conversation.

With this collection:

‘ghost story’ works.

This book 

is a lonely journal.

It's a haunted dreamsong.

One keeping me

company

as the world

appears on pause,

on fire, on mute.

“On the horizon, a cloud

looks like a broken chair in the sky.”