The Failure Experiment

look at this rib, see the interstitial ripple
between and underneath.
no one moves
like i move, an individual
identical unit interchangeable
with all other i.

"Similar to drifting through water, each page of this collection camouflages itself into explorations and queries about the strange things we remember when we try to forget. What does one do when they sink to the bottom of their being? You move through the depths of self that feel like spilled ink; you embrace the multi-limbed thoughts and out-of-sync memories. The Failure Experiment does what any experiment an artist requires--tests every hypothesis of where the line between myth and memory begins and ends, and makes you wonder what [else] one does with grief that changes color."
- haydée r. souffrant: writer, artist, and delusional optimist

"The Failure Experiment is a lyrical explosion, at once intimate and personal while exploring the far reaches of the universe. Ricki Cummings's poetry collection contains a delightful electrical tangle of words and feelings, exploring the nuances of life. What is real? What is artificial? There's no single answer and we don't have to settle on one when the options before us are so brilliant."
- K.B. Wagers: author of And the Mighty Will Fall

"At once visceral and mechanical, detached and tragically invested, yearning and stoic, this work sways between the stubborn momentum of humanity and the quiet freedom of something other, something more. To read it feels like entering the same dazzling city again and again, taking a different route each time--forms springing up like detours and references littering the streets. You get to the end, thinking you've got a handle on everything you've seen. And then you reach the back matter--a tremendous work in and of itself--and you immediately go back to the beginning, giddy to start again."
- Katie West