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In Jake St. John’s, The 13th Round, the stories and feelings he evokes provide the reader with, if not a plan, then an inspiring message, that staggering to your feet is worthwhile and the trophies come from the most ordinary of places. For Jake, these include; kids, favorite books, parental responsibilities, love, laundry, silent midnights, graveyards, childhood wiffle-ball memories, falling down stairs, or a cold beer and hot wings.
These are poems you can sit ringside with, walk with, reminisce with, try to dance with, play with and get a drink with. These poems sing like the best corner man in the business, directing us to go ahead and take the hit, duck and weave and know when to work the inside because you might as well go for the glory. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2025) |
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The poems in Between Her Teeth by Mela Blust presents the reader with a reflection of the wonderful, the wild, the weird and even those moments that are all-out wrong. Blust pours her honesty onto the page in a naked and sometimes beautiful, often brutal, manner that makes the reader take notice. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2022)
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Prince Charming is about connection and confrontation. Connection of the poet to his children, his wife, his loves, his friends, his art and his worldview. Confrontation with death, aging, bad poetry, shit jobs, and those who don’t understand the Warren Zevon philosophy. There are no safe spaces in the poetry of Wolfgang Carstens. He has the guts to put it all on the page; the pain of friends dying, the joy of being paid for poetry readings, a possible mistaken ménage à trois with his wife of 27 years, the hilarity and sharp humor of his children, shopping for groceries, living in a “gray and dismal” city, and the purity of friendship. The poems in this collection show Carstens is as accessible as he is fearless, proving he is one of the most talented writers out there today. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2020)
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The poems in Pretty Things To Say by William Taylor Jr. are a stagger down Lou Reed's Dirty Boulevard. These are street poems, people poems, poet’s poems of raw openness and bare honesty. They are an exploration of cities, people and the poet himself from the vantage point of cafes, barstools, sidewalks and second story windows. William crafts poems masterfully while creating a sense of communion with the reader, as all good poetry should. In his poem, The Mistake, he offers us an invitation, “If you’re free on Tuesday/ we could try and find out/ together” and who could resist an invitation like that? (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2020)
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The poems in Hell and High Water offer the gritty reality of a poet, husband, provider, father and shady romantic wrestling with life's responsibilities and his own primal urges. From the familiar dinner table to disastrous family vacations and mail order sex toys, Wolfgang Carstens presents us with vulnerability, humor, rawness, regret and the rejoicing in twenty-five years of intimacy with another as no other poet can. Carstens has wickedly disguised Hell and High Water as a twisted yet tender guide for the rest of us in maintaining the wildness among minivans, mortgages and matrimony. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2017)
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In Arrows Go Thru Hearts - a collection by Will Staple of his published poems from 1970-1995 - readers are offered an edified peek at the evolution of an artist that is at once raw, adventurous, broken, beaming, sincere and shape-shifting. Readers of these poems will hear the changing of one poet’s voice and state of mind, see the altering of style and substance of poetry lived from cabins to canyons, mountains, meadows, zendos and forests, through interactions with friends and lovers who remain, and those that have long departed. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2017)
Pulitzer prize winning poet, Gary Snyder, says “I have followed Will Staple’s unique, cranky, original poetry since we first met in the sixties…His book, Arrows Go Thru Hearts, has his particular original signature: something is here that belongs to the world of shamanism, deep power, a certain kind of sexual energy, a certain kind of rebellion. His steadiness and commitment to poetry is peerless.”
Pulitzer prize winning poet, Gary Snyder, says “I have followed Will Staple’s unique, cranky, original poetry since we first met in the sixties…His book, Arrows Go Thru Hearts, has his particular original signature: something is here that belongs to the world of shamanism, deep power, a certain kind of sexual energy, a certain kind of rebellion. His steadiness and commitment to poetry is peerless.”
The poems in Perfume & Cigarettes by Madeline Levy come at you like Tom Waits driving a 1957 Cadillac onto the sleek asphalt of night, with only the red glow of taillights sending kisses on the road to everywhere. These poems take us places, somewhere between the proper and the profane, the dive bars and the five-star restaurants. These are poems with wicked grins and sharp edges that will leave a "tiny-sized cut in the back of your heart," and make us believe that "apple pie & cyanide" are a good idea. Madeline Levy is a new and true voice in American poetry who leaves cigarette burns on our crooked wings, yet we still offer to buy her a new pack. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2015)
The poems in Amber Decker's The Girl Who Left You deliver love and lust on the spot, demanding us to immediately pull over to the side of the road and catch our breath. They are moving, visceral snapshots of a poet's life when she bares all and declares: "that next morning/we wore our bruises/proud as prizefighters." When Amber brings us storms over her landscape, we shake deep inside. When she seduces us, we fall for it. And when she leaves us for good, we never forget it, just like her poems. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2014)
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Todd Cirillo's poems in Sucker's Paradise come hurling at you through the window, with no way to sidestep the pain or pleasure of them. They are full of busted hopes and kisses to the cheek, humor and hangovers, flowers at midnight, and hearts that take the beating. It is a collection of Cirillo's life itself--a full-bore run to find the tender moments.
Sucker's Paradise holds all that we desire--the love, the belonging, the possibilities--even if we, too, eventually discover that "everything looks perfect from far away." So, call Cirillo a sucker or a saint, but he rolls with life's hard truths and turns them into poetic bonfires that we find ourselves gathering around, cold beer in hand, hearts ready for anything. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2012) |
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Matt Amott's poems in The Coast is Clear are for 3 a.m. when the only light is the one that she left on, like a Siren's song, beckoning the poet toward love, or the perfect death. These poems are like postcards written to us from a Saturday night barstool--sometimes observational, sometimes interactive, as Matt hops from train to train, town to city, coast to coast. These poems are our ticket to getting out of town and seeing what, or who, is down the road. Matt is our guide through life's sometime gentle and often turbulent terrain. No maps are needed, as Matt knows "the way by heart, to get wherever it is" we long to go. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2012)
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The Distance Between reflects a woman balancing her own wild and reckless heart with the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood. It is both the drawing together and the completely falling apart; the slow dancing in the kitchen and the slamming of the doors. To write lines about the one you love such as "and what we have/isn't called sex anymore" and balance it with the simplicity of "Coltrane on the stereo/red wine with mac and cheese/and a quiet bliss" takes raw guts, which Julie has plenty of , as she opens the window to these joyous and painful truths. (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2011)
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Cheap Shots Chapbook Series
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