New Books Network Daniel Poppick, "The Copywriter" (Scribner, 2026)
Mar 24, 2026
Daniel Poppick, a poet and novelist who also works as a copywriter, reads playful retail copy and reflects on poetic form. He discusses how poetic attention shapes a hybrid novel, the strange humor of product descriptions, and the politics of poetry as refusal. Conversations range from notebooks and time to phones, presence, and the craft overlap between advertising and lyric writing.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Novel As Poetic Notebook
- Poetry and the novel can merge so the novel functions as a form that contains poetic fragments and records time.
- Daniel Poppick structured The Copywriter as a two-year notebook to let poems, parables, and fragments emerge organically within a novelistic arc.
Poet Friend's Product Descriptions Sparked Scenes
- A poet friend sent ludicrously meticulous product descriptions that blurred poetry and retail copy and inspired scenes in the book.
- Poppick reproduced Ashbery-inflected product lines (lamps, dish racks, soy candles) to show how poetic voice can satirize commerce.
Retail Copy Is A Weird Way Of Talking
- Retail copy and poetry are both 'weird ways of talking' but serve different functions: one sells, the other reorganizes attention.
- Poppick worked commercial copy and used that tension to dramatize how language is commodified at a millennial retail site.
