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The Saints of Capitalism
"The Saints of Capitalism is Benjamin Schmitt at his headlong, urgent, desperately funny best. These poems, both colloquial and meticulously wrought, offer the sense of looking outward from the center of a long emergency, where the everyday, the absurd, and the downright uncanny have begun to blend. But a deep humanity underlies Schmitt's sharp wit: Look at all that needs saving, he tells us, which also means that much is worth saving. What an exhilarating and consoling book this is."
— Kristi Coulter, author of Nothing Good Can Come from This
"Benjamin Schmitt’s The Saints of Capitalism has enough humor, insight, and imagination for three books. Part emotional autobiography, part diagnosis of our current decline, Schmitt 'write[s] for all the saints of capitalism/worshipping at the decrepit altars of long cons.' The book is political, but political in the sense of one person opening his heart to another, rather than any screed. Along the way, there are remarkable portraits of citizens lost in our fever swamp culture. Schmitt has looked long and hard at the detritus of the nation and written something intelligent and heartfelt. The Saints of Capitalism speaks to where we’ve been as a country and where we may be going, making it unique among contemporary books of poems."
— Justin Lacour, author of My Heart is Shaped Like a Bed: 46 Sonnets
"Benjamin Schmitt is an artist of the truest sense, soaking up the culture he moves in, creating poems to make sense of it, while calculating possible futures. The Saints of Capitalism is such a work, showing us how we relate to the world and how we got to where we are today."
— Brandon Pitts, author of Tender in the Age of Fury and In the Company of Crows
About the Author
Benjamin Schmitt is the author of three books, most recently Soundtrack to a Fleeting Masculinity. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sojourners, Antioch Review, The Good Men Project, Hobart, Columbia Review, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he has also written articles for The Seattle Times and At The Inkwell. He lives in Seattle with his wife and children.
