"The debut collection from award-winning poet Morgan Parker demonstrates why she's become one of the most beloved writers working today. Her command of language is on full display. Parker bobs and weaves between humor and pathos, grief and anxiety, Gwendolyn Brooks and Jay-Z, the New York school and reality television. She collapses any foolish distinctions between the personal and the political, the "high" and the "low." Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night not only introduced an essential new voice to the world, it contains everything readers have come to love about Morgan Parker's work"--

• Introduction ix
• There Are Other Things I Want to Explain 1 (1)
• but They Are Mysteries
• The World Is Beautiful but You Are Not in It 2 (2)
• If My Housemate Fucks with Me I Would Get 4 (2)
• So Real (Audition Tape Take 1)
• Face Cathedral 6 (2)
• Poem for the June Eclipse 8 (2)
• Miss Black America 10 (1)
• Poem Made of Chewed-Up Nicorette from the 11 (2)
• Garbage in Front of Kate Hudson's House
• Real Housewife Defends Herself in Front of 13 (2)
• a Live Studio Audience
• How to Piss in Public and Maintain 15 (3)
• Femininity
• The Housecleaners, Early Wednesday Morning 18 (2)
• Downtown
• Morgan What, Morgan Who? 20 (2)
• Miss Black America 22 (1)
• I'm Not Like the King of Black People 23 (5)
• It Doesn't Get Cold Where We're From and We 28 (1)
• Weren't Taught
• Real Housewife Considers Feminist Theory 29 (2)
• While Sketching Designs for Her Handbag Line
• I Was Trotting Along and Suddenly 31 (2)
• Boys, Boys, Boys 33 (2)
• Poem Made of Empty Prescription Bottles 35 (3)
• from the Garbage in Front of Bill Murray's
• House
• America This Is for You (Audition Tape Take 38 (2)
• 2)
• Greetings from Struggle City 40 (9)
• There Is Another World and I Am Better in It 49 (2)
• In Search of Morgan, Season 3, Episode 24 51 (3)
• On Getting One's Groove Back 54 (2)
• Miss Black America 56 (1)
• Everyone Knows Where Art Comes from It 57 (3)
• Comes from the Store
• Apology with Pearls On 60 (2)
• Rest Stop / Fresno County Line / January 62 (2)
• White Walls White People 64 (2)
• Young, Sassy, and Black 66 (1)
• Quiet Alcohol 67 (1)
• On Children, How I Hate Them and Want to 68 (2)
• Corrupt Them, How You Know I Hate Them, and
• What That Could Mean
• Miss Black America 70 (1)
• I'd Rather Sink ... Than Call Brad for Help! 71 (2)
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch 73 (5)
• Hot Serpent in the City 78 (2)
• Poem 80 (1)
• Poem 81 (1)
• Miss Black America 82 (1)
• Their Grandmothers Never Did the Laundry 83 (2)
• Epistolary Poem for Reader, Brother, 85 (4)
• Grandmother, Men (or, When I Say I Want to
• Spit You Up)
• Look 89 (2)
• Blessings, Injuries 91 (1)
• Everything Is Bothering Me 92 (6)
• Apology in Hopes of Men 98 (2)
• Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night 100(5)
• Other People's Acknowledgments 105