So What: Poems

So What by Frederick Seidel 

A bold, electrifying new collection from Frederick Seidel, the poet The New York Times calls “the Dark Prince of American Poetry.” In So What, Seidel returns with razor-sharp precision, ferocious wit, and an unflinching gaze at the American condition—and himself.

Speeding across Manhattan on a racetrack-only Superbike, chasing the blur of youth into the shadows of old age, Seidel ignites poems that burn with desire, defiance, and dark beauty. Now in his 80s, the poet refuses to slow down, smashing the boundaries between past and present, love and violence, elegance and brutality. These poems roar with late-blooming lust, glinting wristwatches, aging bodies, and the stark face of modern America.

With his signature opulence and edge, Seidel charts a poetic journey that is both destructive and dazzling, tender and terrifying. As the wreckage of time gathers, he stands amid it all and declares: so what.

A must-read for fans of provocative, fearless poetry, So What confirms Seidel’s place as one of the most uncompromising voices in contemporary American literature.