Extinction Theory is a collection of pseudoscience poems that try to provide rationales for some of life's most salient mysteries. Where is God? What does it mean to belong? Who killed the dinosaurs? Kien Lam creates new worlds with new rules to better answer these perennial questions. His poetry is that of discovery, of looking at the world as if for the first time. Lam exposes the transitory and transcendent nature of things and how we find meaning. At the heart of this collection is also a cataloging of the smaller "extinctions" in life. Every passing moment is the death of something, and try as we might to recreate the feeling, it can never be the same. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's a donut. It changes its shape as we juxtapose it against something new. Extinction Theory is as much about language as it is about the absence of language. Of English, of Vietnamese, and then of neither.

Attempting to stitch a quilt of language for the new millennium, Kyle Dargan finds himself in his third collection propelled forward by a melange of voices--individuals passed on the street, journalists, philosophers, movie and cartoon characters, hip-hop emcees, and fellow poets--all of which build to a self-diagnosed logorrhea dementia. Dargan's voice channels an America mentally fatigued from a decade of foreign conflict yet cautiously hopeful about the promise of the country's renewed introspection. In these poems, rife with the anxieties of the aughts, Dargan seeks to destabilize social and cultural landscapes believed to be settled--breaking and clearing ground to lay the foundation for a new American perspective.

Kyle Dargan's debut collection of poetry, "The Listening," searches through the cluttered surface of contemporary life to tune into the elemental sounds within the marrow of living/life. Throughout the collection, Dargan interweaves elements of his heritage with the present day--jazz influences blend with hip-hop; neoslave narratives run parallel with the intimate tale of civil rights leaders; post-9/11 America is juxtaposed with family portraits of the sixties and seventies--to reveal the continuous, though ever changing, music of the world around us. Whether capturing the famous Ali-Frazier fight in Manila or a trip to the local barbershop, Muddy Waters or boyhood blacktop games, Dargan gives voice to the most poignant and fleeting aspects of our everyday existence. With singular incisiveness and vigor, these poems act simultaneously as psalms and elegies, praising life at the same time they lament its inevitable passing.

Entering its fourteenth year, Best New Poets has established itself as a crucial venue for rising poets and a valuable resource for poetry lovers. The only publication of its kind, this annual anthology is made up exclusively of work by writers who have not yet published a full-length book. The poems included in this eclectic sampling represent the best from the many that have been nominated by the country's top literary magazines and writing programs, as well as some two thousand additional poems submitted through an open online competition. The work of the fifty writers represented here provides the best perspective available on the continuing vitality of poetry as it is being practiced today.