Oh Shit! Christmas is next week!

“This chap comes across differently like a lover you grow old with, or a best friend that just fits right.  The voice in this book is fresh but one you identify with…It is seldom that a book of poetry comes around that can change the way we view the world.  Picking up a copy of this book just might make a difference.”

“Coupled with the superb trick of pacing, Jones extends the film/video idea, creating a novel-length metaphor of disconnection and relativity. Movie characters integrate themselves among the customers. The majority of the narrator’s relationship is through the lens of a camcorder, or in mental vignettes culled from too many Cary Grant movies. And his attempt to seduce her using his pedantic film knowledge goes drastically wrong in a funny but cringe-worthy exchange. In the end, it’s one of the most effective themes in recent memory, and perfectly suits the character and the world he inhabits.”

“In National Viriginty Pledge Graham rounds them all up and takes us on a trip of fear and loathing in 80 pages of sex, booze and raw relationships where there is usually a pair of panties ready to lure you into the scene.”

“Kevin Finn’s Exit Wounds oozes a Summer-to-Fall transition, from stunning cover art to chilling content all the way to the dying-tree brown color scheme.”

“Major Inversions, from its “shitty” opening scene, to its final tragicomic pages simply works. You will likely not read a funnier book for quite some time.”

“The twelve stories compromising Mel Bosworth’s chapbook, When the Cats Razzed the Chickens & other stories, elicit discomfort, awe, a few laughs, and as a writer, envy, often all within the same story. And though the length of some stories (often less than 100 words) belies the ability to contain such a swath of reactions, they do so consistently and impressively.”

(Note: this review was written before Mel Bosworth became an OWC contributor)

“With each vignette, the loose narrative arc comments upon a consistent sense of foreboding, which perhaps goes hand-in-hand with the prose poem form (is there ever a hopeful flash fiction piece?). The story is never linear, though never jarring. It’s a mistake to search for linear anchors in the text, as the setting and even the characters are fluid. There is a sense of story that meshes with the reader rather than dictates to him.”