I Think I Know You

In I Think I Know You, Julie Gard explores the ways we struggle to understand each other's hearts and histories, along with our own. These prose poems speak of deep connection and tragicomic gaps in understanding, as life's pedantic, transcendent rhythms are mined for revealing moments and messages. Elements include dialogue overheard in northern Minnesota coffee shops and at the Jersey shore, personal crashes and landings in the aftermath of the Soviet Union, and queer identity in middle age. The final section of the book is a series of text messages sent by the poet to herself during a crucial election season, examining daily life, dreamscape, and the collective psyche in a time of political upheaval. Gard attempts to map out, complicate, and bridge divides, concluding that a sense of belonging, and a shared sense of home, may be the most important thing we have to offer each other.