Set in locations from dive bars to Montparnasse Cemetery, from an ancient Greek temple to a tourist shop in Assisi, Exit Opera explores the ever-vexing issues of time, mortality, love, and loss, and considers the roles of art and human connection. Whatever their nominal subject—jazz, zombies, Buddhism, Siberian tigers—these poems make for a compelling mix of humor and pain, difficulty and solace. In a nod to Keats, one of the many fellow travelers in these poems, Addonizio invites us to “[inscribe] a few verses on whatever water / you can find” and assures readers that they are not alone in navigating the challenges and changes of mortal life.

As she writes in “My Opera”: The staging is difficult. Exploding stars are involved, high-redshift galaxies, interior chambers, a little country blues, a little jazz guitar, a jam jar containing a tiny ocean & a tinier rowboat rocking gently in the swells that I am steering toward you in the dark.