Jul 04
first published in http://misfitmagazine.net/ Scot Young, They Said I Wasn’t College Material, Roadside Press, Magic Jeep Distributing, available on Amazon, 2024, 132 pages, $15 Young’s latest collection is a selected, mostly culled from before 2009. The title comes from an actual conversation with a guidance counselor who failed to see Young’s potential as a student. Scot, in …
Jun 28
Just got my signed hardcover copy of Dan Denton’s amazing memoir, The Dead and the Desperate, on Roadside Press. If you’re looking for a tale of personal purgatory but ultimate redemption, this is the book for you. There have been many literary takes on blue collar life in America—dead-end jobs, dead-end relationships, and often mixed …
Jun 25
first published in misfitmagazine.net Susan Ward Mickelberry, and blackberries grew wild, Roadside Press, distributed by Magical Jeep, available on Amazon, 2024, 100 pages, $15 Susan is essentially a narrative poet reflecting on her past in the many places she has lived in and visited as an army brat, over a long and eventful life. A strong sense …
Jun 24
first published in misfitmagazine.net James Duncan, Cistern Latitudes, Roadside Press, Distributed by Magical Jeep, also available on Amazon, 2024, 84 pages, $15 Duncan’s narratives often put me in mind of late 50s, early 60s cafés featuring traditional folk singers. These were usually solo acts playing acoustic guitar with artists singing traditional ballads and the occasional original song. …
Jun 23
first published at https://www.i94bar.com/reviews/books/3126-disaffected-dan-denton-must-be-your-new-fave-author Disaffected? Dan Denton must be your new fave author The Dead and The Desperate By Dan Denton (Roadside Press) Way back in the New Wave/Post punk era, one of my only friends was a kid with a very similar name to mine. He was really into Depeche Mode and Tubeway Army, and he had a real …
Jun 22
first published at misfitmagazine.net John Pietaro, Innocent Postcards: poetry ciphers, verse, Roadside Press, distributed by Magical Jeep, also available on Amazon, 2024, 87 pages, $15 Moving back and forth throughout the Cold War years to the present, Pietaro’s unusual but affecting collection effectively renders a state of mind that was dominated by Cold War politics. I …
Jun 21
first published in misfitmagazine.net Todd Cirillo, Disposable Darlings, Roadside Press, distributed by Magical Jeep Distribution and available on Amazon, 2024, 84 pages, $15 Reading Cirillo put me in mind of working in the neighborhood bar and hanging out with the regulars. When I dedicate a book, as I often have, “to the regulars as they made life …
Jun 20
first published in misfitmagazine.net Dan Provost, All in a Pretty Little Row, Roadside Press, Magical Jeep Distribution, available on Amazon, 196 pages, 2023, $15 All in a Pretty Little Row, collects ten of Provost’s chapbooks published over the past 20 years. Some of these are rarely seen, extremely limited editions, so this recent trend by prolific poets to …
Jun 09
“… he clarified his intention, which was “beat” as beatific, as in “dark night of the soul,” or “cloud of unknowing,” the necessary beatness of darkness that proceeds opening up to light, egolessness, giving room for religious illumination.”—Allen Ginsberg In some ways, Gregory Corso represented a darkness within a darkness: a beat within the Beat. …
May 24
Ryan Quinn Flanagan’s These Many Cold Winters of the Heart begins with an epigraph from Emily Dickinson “I am out with lanterns looking for myself,” a perfect depiction of this collection. You will be riveted from the opening poem, “I Grew Up in a Brewery Town,” where the Molson plant closes down but “people survived, they usually …
