Rom Com

At precisely the cultural moment you were hoping for, a dream team of smart, sexy, brunette, West Coast poets of Italian descent has passionately co-authored an intelligent collection of poetry that both celebrates and capsizes the romantic comedy.

From the origin of the genre (It Happened One Night) to its contemporary expressions (Love Actually), the poems inRom Com trace the attempt to deconstruct as well as engage in dialogue with romantic comedy films and the pop culture, celebrities, and tropes that have come to be associated with them. These irreverent, playful, weird, and comedic poems come in a variety of forms, fully engaging in pop culture, without a judgmental tone. They see your frumpy expectations and raise you issues of sexuality, consent, sexism, homophobia, race, and class. They explore the highs and lows of romantic relationships and the expectations and realities of love, tackling real emotional worlds through the lens of film.

Two cool people wrote it. Dina Del Bucchia, the fashionable and voluptuous, is a woman on the go, brazenly hosting literary events and tweeting about otters and award shows. Daniel Zomparelli, the handsome and dashing, is a young, gay man-about-Vancouver who somehow also quietly edits (in chief) a semi-annual poetry journal. (Ship them all you want, fools.)

How to tell if you are compatible with this book: Are you equally versed in literature and pop culture? Are you a film-savvy fan of contemporary poetry? Are you an academic with interest in literature and cultural studies? Are you in general a cool, sad person? This book might just be the sassy best friend you’ve wanted.

Dina Del Bucchiais the author of Coping with Emotions and Otters (Talonbooks, 2013) andBlind Items (Insomniac Press, 2014). She guest edited the Humour issue of Poetry Is Dead magazine and is an artistic director of the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series. Her story Under the I’” was a finalist for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award. Dina co-hosts the podcast Can’t Lit with Daniel Zomparelli. She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and lives in Vancouver.

Daniel Zomparelli is editor-in-chief of Poetry Is Dead magazine, a semi-annual publication devoted to poetry in Canada with a strong emphasis on the West Coast. He is a co-podcaster at Can’t Lit, a monthly webcast on all things Canadian and literature. His first book of poems, Davie Street Translations (2012), was published by Talonbooks. Current endeavours includeAfter You, a series of interconnected poems that span North America.