Imaginary Landscapes

COVER OF MATURE THEMES BY ANDREW DURBIN (NIGHTBOAT BOOKS) FEATURING IMAGE OF ALEX DA CORTE’s BODY WITHOUT ORGANS, 2013. PHOTO: COURTESY OF ANDREW DURBIN AND NIGHTBOAT BOOKS. 

Writer of acutely self-aware, post-conceptual, artfully essayistic verse (sometimes about Justin Bieber), poet Andrew Durbin, the fair-haired prince of an increasingly relevant New York poetry scene, was recently spotted slipping into some Jil Sander at a local boutique. “I’m rebranding,” he explained. At 25, Durbin’s growing public profile—and concern with brand optics—is enviable. He’s even caught the attention of the art world, having been invited to do a reading in Zurich by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist earlier this year. Earlier this month, Durbin released his latest poetry collection, Mature Themes (Nightboat Books). A beguilingly twisty tangle of social critique, pop fandom, and personal overshare, it’s a perfect read. One sentence reads, “You might call them saints, carrying the desired world within them, disciplined into fame by its power.”