Feb 26, 2013
Breathless as the owner of the car you’ve just stolen and unsettling as the first date who says I love you, Nate Slawson doesn’t push boundaries in Panic Attack, U.S.A., he warps them like a telekinetic Proteus.
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Breathless as the owner of the car you’ve just stolen and unsettling as the first date who says I love you, Nate Slawson doesn’t push boundaries in Panic Attack, U.S.A., he warps them like a telekinetic Proteus.
In addition to dealing with nostalgia head-on, one of Panic Attack, U.S.A.’s strongest qualities is its appropriation of a seemingly immature teenage voice, and how it uses what could be a thin, reedy, irritating whine to gracefully address a number of “big” topics.
"Without the disruption of correctness, without any way out, really, Slawson does not allow for our exit. These poems were written without regard for the author or for his audience, and I admire Slawson for it. Right or wrong, it leads to a necessity in the poems (to their existence, to your reading of them) that feels dangerous, but also feels extremely beautiful, even when it’s bleeding all over you blue blue dress."
—BJ Love
"These poems demand we find our own megaphone hearts."
–Gina Myers
According to The Huffington Post
PANIC ATTACK, USA "coalesces into a wrenching, convincing, and instructive portrayal of American manhood in the early twenty-first century." Or, according to Muddy Waters, "I'm a man."