Tropic of Squalor (Poems)

A new volume of poetry from the New York Times bestselling and esteemed author of The Liar’s Club and Lit.

Long before she earned accolades for her genre-defining memoirs, Mary Karr was winning poetry prizes. Now the beloved author returns with a collection of bracing poems as visceral and deeply felt and hilarious as her memoirs. In Tropic of Squalor, Karr dares to address the numinous—that mystery some of us hope towards in secret, or maybe dare to pray to. The "squalor" of meaninglessness that every thoughtful person wrestles with sits at the core of human suffering, and Karr renders it with power—illness, death, love’s agonized disappointments. Her brazen verse calls us out of our psychic swamplands and into that hard-won awareness of the divine hiding in the small moments that make us human. In a single poem she can generate tears, horror, empathy, laughter, and peace. She never preaches. But whether you’re an adamant atheist, a pilgrim, or skeptically curious, these poems will urge you to find an inner light in the most baffling hours of darkness.

This is not quiet, polite poetry—this is a bare-knuckled conversation with the divine.

• Poems about Faith and Doubt: Karr’s signature voice wrestles with belief and meaninglessness, creating a space for both the adamant atheist and the hopeful pilgrim.
• Confessional Poetry: From loony bins to family trauma, these verses are as visceral, unflinching, and deeply personal as her bestselling memoirs, The Liar’s Club and Lit.
• Dark Humor and Raw Honesty: Find laughter, horror, and empathy in the same poem. Karr never preaches, but instead invites you into the psychic swamplands to find hard-won peace.
• Unconventional Prayers: A collection that dares to talk to God, Jesus, and the divine with a brazen, unfiltered voice that speaks to the most baffling hours of darkness.