Class consciousness and contradictions percolate throughout Losers, Colin Pope’s third collection. Highly personal, these poems acknowledge the damage wrought on underprivileged populations while celebrating a working-class background.

Dishwasher, delivery guy, ne’er-do-well, paper boy—the characters who populate this volume are not de facto failures or screwups but rather people caught within societally imposed definitions that subtract uniqueness while racing for the lowest common denominator. “I’m gonna die here” is less a lament than a celebration of place, of knowledge, of self-confidence, because “I’m gonna live here first.”

Infused with dignity, with humanity, with the compassion born out of seeing the worst in people and still seeing them as people, Losers thumbs its nose at other folks’ labels. A celebration of postindustrial, rural America, this book is a paean to anyone thought undesirable and highlights the advantages (and disadvantages) imposed by geography, beauty, status, wealth, and opportunity.