Piano Rats

I want to push her away because I know she won't believe me, and why should she? I want to hug her because she is wildly honest as she depicts the awkward reality of a twenty-something in Chicago.

In Piano Rats you will find a young women drowning in sadness, and not worried about how she can hide it. Franki Elliot exposes what most bury beneath layers of shallow conversations, bottles of alcohol, and innuendo. She will subtly make you love her and hate her in the matter of a few well placed lines. Here is a woman who is no stranger to love. Her poetry is like a mirror hanging on my wall, reflecting my own emotions and thoughts back at me. She makes me want to scream "Fuck You" to every guy I dated who didn't "get me".

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She makes me want to get behind the pretty words people throw around, quit beating around the bush, and see things for what they really are. She creates a language of her own, breathing out lines like: Paperback , 2 , 84 pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Piano Rats , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia.

Oct 15, William Thomas rated it really liked it. I stood outside the gallery for a few minutes looking at all the legs walking the floor with their tights and naked thighs and the blue-jeaned boys. I didn't want to go inside because I was alone and everyone seemed to know each other, but that's really just how I always feel when I walk into a room.

Like everyone knows everyone else and who the fuck am I and what the fuck am I doing here and someone is going to ask me to leave in a not-so-polite tone sometime soon. So I sit and stare through th I stood outside the gallery for a few minutes looking at all the legs walking the floor with their tights and naked thighs and the blue-jeaned boys. So I sit and stare through the window and pull on a cigarette and decide to go inside because fuck it, her publisher published one of my poems and I'm an artist and a writer even though no one knows it and if someone asks what I'm doing there I'll just say I'm looking at all of the cute shoes shuffling around the floor.

I went to the book release party for Piano Rats tonight and walked around the room feeling underdressed and disgusted by the Marcel Duchamp copycat crap on the walls of the second room at the Hinge Gallery on Chicago Ave. Wherever I moved, I was in the way, so I walked back outside after buying the chapbook and sat in my car, reading it, so I wouldn't have to go home and feel like I failed again at going out for a night.

Franki Elliot was called one of the dirtiest minds in Chicago, but I don't think that's an apt description. I think it was said lovingly, though, and that's a good thing, but still, I don't find anything dirty in her writing. I find it to be honest. Or as honest as any poet can be. I found myself re-reading some of the work and skimming through other pieces that didn't have as much weight.

That's really the surprise here, in this collection. Its a heavyweight disguised and fighting under its weight class. Some of these pieces can kill a man if he reads them in the wrong, or right, state of mind. I don't want to add a bunch of adjectives here like 'electrifying' and 'intelligent' and 'literary'. I don't want to blow smoke up her skirt either, but I want to lay the fair amount of praise right down to the bone. But I'm just not sure how to do that. So maybe I will lay down a slew of adjectives and let it go at that.

The pieces don't dance on the page, they lurch and step heavily from one word to the other, hulking and imposing, but also stalking the reader hellbent on landing a killing blow. It is electrifying in the same way it thrills you to look at a one-handed magazine for the first time when you're twelve. Its unashamed in its admittance of its flaws and mistakes and its honesty embarrasses you in a way that makes you want to hurriedly turn the page with a blush because it struck an exposed nerve, the same one you've been tonguing for years.

As with most collections, though, some of the work faulters and flounders. Some of it feels unfinished, some of it feels too bare for its own good. But if this is the first work of Franki Elliot, then we have only great things to look forward to from now on.

View all 5 comments. Sep 14, Ben rated it it was amazing. Dec 22, Curbside Splendor rated it it was amazing. It could be a line in the poem that impresses me. Or a person in the poem that makes me wonder what he'd be like in another situation. Or a relationship that makes me want to know if it worked out. Or a memory I have while reading the poem.

For me, Piano Rats by Franki Elliot had all of the above. Dec 22, Nicole Jacob rated it it was amazing Shelves: Franki Elliot is basically my role model. Her words, her voice I'm in love with Piano Rats because she writes about all the things I never have the courage to say. Feb 13, Natalia rated it really liked it. This book of precise, bittersweet poems is beautiful.

And it fits into the palm of your hand! Full review forthcoming at Los Angeles Review: Mar 15, Josh rated it it was amazing. A new book of poetry that makes me feel something. Aug 23, Lori rated it really liked it Shelves: Piano Rats should be available sometime in October. From page one, her honesty and ability to drop an F-Bomb won my heart. Frankie finds beauty in pain, and I want her to show me how.

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Oct 11, Alice rated it really liked it. Franki's stories have soul and wit, but are also made of real flesh and blood. Weekly "Sometimes I run across a poem that makes me second guess my opinion on poetry. It could be a line in the poem that impresses me. Or a person in the poem that makes me wonder what he'd be like in another situation. Or a relationship that makes me want to know if it worked out. Or a memory I have while reading the poem. For me, Piano Rats by Franki Elliot had all of the above.

Vaughn, Chicago Tribune "The book is a collection of deeply personal pieces, arranged as free verse poems, though Elliot calls them "stories. Most of them detail a down-and-out cast with unbroken spirits, people who predict early deaths but live as if they don't believe it. They are Frank O'Hara meets Ellen Kennedy, "first kiss" meets "fuck off," "hell" meets "rainstorm," poetry meets prose, narrative meets lyric, trailer park meets city street.

But they are also entirely themselves, places where you "remember who you wanted to be. It's just that you haven't quite figured out how to escape where you've been and frankly you have know no idea what comes next. And it is this tension of stuckness in all its messy, druggy, sometimes hopeful, youthful confusion that lives here in these poems and explodes across these pages, all oozy and terribly electric. She will subtly make you love her and hate her in the matter of a few well placed lines. Soon after, she began asking people to send her topics to write about because she was tired of writing about herself.

Soon after, in search of new material, Elliot began carrying the typewriter to various festivals, beaches, flea markets and let strangers come up to her, request a topic, and leave with a story. Stucky has done everything from carving eyeglasses out of wood, adorning fire hydrants throughout Chicago with his masterful art, designing tattoos, live screenprinting, mural painting and, of course, creating books. Elliot, who is Los Angeles based via hometown Chicago, is a music industry professional booking bands by day and writing books by night.