Nov 27
Richard Vargas, The Screw City Poems, 2025, 136 pages, $18 If you were expecting heavily charged erotica here due to the title, Screw City you will likely be disappointed. Not that there isn’t sex, there is some, married, break up sex, hook up sex but “Screw City” refers to a small midwestern city (Rockford, IL) that was once known …
Nov 26
first published in misfit magazine, Editor Alan Catlin Aleathia Drehmer, Little Graveyards, 2025, 66 pages, $15 Little Graveyards is a small, easily transportable book that will easily fit into your purse or back pocket. I highly recommend taking the poems with you, reading a couple at a time, and saving the rest for later. Aleathia works in health care, …
Jun 20
Jason Anderson, Apocalypsing, 2024, 306 pages, $20 This is a wild ride. I kept thinking it is sort of like well if Lincoln in Bardo got mixed up with a PK Dick novel, take your pick which one, say, Ubik or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and had a Naked Lunch while tripping on acid, something like this might emerge. Maybe. The …
Jan 10
first published in http://misfitmagazine.net/ Karl Koweski, Abandoned by All Things, Roadside Press Distributed by Magical Jeep Distribution, available on Amazon, 2024, 136 pages $15- Koweski’s journey in life travels from the Midwest to the deep South. He observes Alabama’s barely sentient senator Tommy Tuberville as “the mostly evil, largely senseless/senator of Alabama” whose modest credentials for elective office, …
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 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 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 …
