Psychosis in the Produce Department

Psychosis in the Produce Department: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2015 gathers the best work from Laurel Ann Bogen’s previous ten books as well as new and unpublished poetry. Ranging in themes as diverse as horrific beauty and exquisite madness, dysfunctional families, love and anti-love, life in Los Angeles and Hollywood, and growing up as a Baby Boomer, these poems offer sly, humorous, surreal—and most crucially, accessible—genre-busting work that can only be called Vintage Bogen.
Readers are also given the unique opportunity to experience the full power of Bogen’s critically acclaimed poetry performance through ten included QR codes that link to audio files of select poems in the collection.

Despite an award-winning 30-year career, Laurel Ann Bogen—poet, performance artist, teacher, author of ten books includingWashing a Language (Red Hen Press, 2004) and The Last Girl in the Land of the Butterflies(Red Wind Books, 1996)—might be mistaken for an overnight sensation. The arc of her writing career began during the 1970s, through years of harrowing confinement inside the back wards of psychiatric hospitals. She carved her way back to life through poetry and, along the way, has influenced decades of LA-based poets, students, lovers (and even non-lovers) of language with her unmistakable and unmistakably powerful voice. Bogen has taught in the UCLA Writer’s Extension Program since 1990 and is also a founding member of the celebrated poetry performance ensemble, Nearly Fatal Women. She lives in Los Angeles.