The world swirls in chaos as the poet steps into a new life in the Northeast of England, where stars dance on ice to bottomless piña coladas, politicians go belly-up to the public trough, and Vladimir Putin gets leathered up to sing ‘blueberry hill’ at karaoke night. As the seasons unfold, TOTAL RHUBARB is revealed.
 
J. Archer Avary’s exuberant collection celebrates the minutiae of Sunday roasts at somebody else’s local pub, gives two fingers to vindictive seagulls. He daydreams of high-altitude hot tubs, simultaneously pondering a complicated ancestry, the realities of ageing, and parental alienation.
 
TOTAL RHUBARB is cannibalistic hamsters, objects lost in-transit, the ridges of a Roman Coin under the hot light of a display case.
 
TOTAL RHUBARB is sand in yr eyeball, statues of people fucking on sale at a roadside shack, hummingbirds wings beating in slow motion.
 
TOTAL RHUBARB is being escorted from yr work pod on a Friday afternoon, the pep talk on the night before a new job, cocktails in thunder-snow, the smell of burnt sugar.
 
The poet seeks shelter in the only logical place— a hot tub at Kiln Pit Hill where he seeks comfort in Kylie Minogue (sparking wine) and a cheese plate. As Russian forces advance into Ukraine, the poet’s grip on reality is upended by a near-death experience in which he suffers a nasty hot tub accident.
 
J. Archer Avary looks at life with a bromide wit, a heart soft as talc. Poignant, funny, and marinaded in kimchee & bacon remoulade, TOTAL RHUBARB is pink noise for the poet’s soul.
 
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