Whether misreading sixth?grade pedagogical materials or offering visual schematics for reading Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, Jon Paul Fiorentino'?s sixth poetry collection asks us to reconsider our engagement with received information —?? but does so with a wink during detention, a dodgeball to the gut during recess.

'Needs Improvement is as a book of a new logic making its way from witty statements to slow moving alyric villanelles, achieving brilliantly a contemporary sense of streaming among words, places and "no self." Whether this feeling comes from rearranged intentions, satirical knowledge, wise and displaced arguments, each page points a finger at language and does so with "no fears."' — —?? Nicole Brossard

Jon Paul Fiorentino
Jon Paul Fiorentino’s first novel is Stripmalling (ECW, 2009). His most recent book of poetry is The Theory of the Loser Class (Coach House Books, 2006). He is the author of the poetry book Hello Serotonin (Coach House Books, 2004) and the humour book Asthmatica (Insomniac Press, 2005). His most recent editorial projects are the anthologies Career Suicide! Contemporary Literary Humour (DC Books, 2003) and Post-Prairie — a collaborative effort with Robert Kroetsch, (Talonbooks, 2005).

Robert Kroetsch
Robert Kroetsch is a Canadian novelist, poet, and non-fiction writer. In his novel, The Words of My Roaring (1966), he began to use the tall tale rhetoric of prairie taverns. Both The Studhorse Man (1969), which won the Governor General’s Award, and Gone Indian (1973) call the conventions of realistic fiction hilariously into question.

In 2004, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Jon Paul Fiorentino's profile page

• Short-listed, A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry