Campaign

On February 1, 2016, the date of the Iowa Caucus, David Breskin began a project that would carry him through the American presidential election. An ex- journalist, Breskin set out to “cover” this most strange and historic election, under the pressure of a reporter’s daily deadline, by writing one poem a day. He created a deliberately awkward, rollickingly restrictive form—seven beats per line, eleven lines per poem—and, noting our preference for the convenience of sound- bite news and junk-food polls over more nutritious fare, called them “7-Elevens.”

The result is Campaign, a fierce, prescient, oddly moving and scathingly funny book. No one is spared (not Ted, not Marco, not Carly; not Hillary nor Bernie nor The Donald; not the Pope nor Scalia nor even Jeb!) as Breskin shines a searching light on the hubris and folly of our would-be leaders. Yet he also captures what is fine about America and Americans, even under siege. “Smashed glass of freedom, a toast / for this sad ballad country / that orphans its immigrants.”

Campaign is a record of the election unfolding in real time: its distractions and psychodramas laid bare; its bit-part players of single news cycles recycled; the silliness of its silly season skewered. All the while, the drumbeat of essential issues sounds throughout these seventy-seven beat poems, reminding us what was—and remains—at stake.