Click this link for an extensive article on Paul Violi in Jacket Magazine.
http://jacketmagazine.com/33/quattrone-violi.shtml
Reviews of Our New Titles!
Booklist Review, May 2nd
Jones, Hettie. Doing 70. May 2007. 96p. Hanging Loose, $25 (9781931236737); paper, $15 (9781931236720). 811.
Readers will instantly know that Jones is committed to being fully present in the world. That’s why she writes with such engaged interest about what we know well—everyday life. Whether presenting New York scenes with delightfully quirky insight, offering biting but brief political commentary, or lightly cloaking compact observations on the state of the world in simple words with sharp wit, Jones reveals the wisdom of someone who has really thought about life. Yet, her greatest gift, which will make readers wish they could befriend her, is the way she sympathetically connects with strangers, observing in the same way as a concerned friend carefully listens. From an actor neighbor she chats with to the young tow truck driver with whom she shares a long ride, she treasures fleeting life moments, though she never over dramatizes them or exaggerates their impact. With such groundedness and life gusto, it is easy to see why Jones’s poem “Ready or Not” states, “I think I won’t ever be ready/never ready, never/ enough already.” —Janet St. John
Los Angeles Times Review, April 15th
Larkin, Joan My Body: New and Selected Poems, May 2007 76p. Hanging Loose $16 (9781236744) $26(9781931236751) hardcover
For nearly 40 years, Joan Larkin has written poems that stake out a territory of relentless self-examination, taking on love and death, family and sexuality in a voice that is unsentimental, ruthless and clear-eyed.... My Body: New and Selected Poems gathers generous samplings from Larkin’s three previous collections, as well as a substantial array of new material. It’s a remarkable statement, tracing the evolution of a poet from her earliest efforts(“My mother gave me a bitter tongue. / My father gave me a turned back,” she begins “Rhyme of My Inheritance”) to the stunning sweep and simplicity of her current work.
“I’m older than my father when he turned/ bright gold and left his body with its used-up liver/ in the Faulkner Hospital, Jamaica Plain,” Larkin writes in “Afterlife.”
Best of all is the transcendent “Blackout Sonnets,” a sonnet crown (seven linked sonnets, joined by repeating first and last lines), which originally appeared in her 1986 book, “ A Long Sound.” “I drank anything and slept with everyone,” she acknowledges, “ kept my mouth shut about the abortion.”
This poetry without pity, in which despair leads not to degradation but to a kind of grace. –David L.Ulin
The Phoenix Review, April 10th
Violi, Paul. Overnight, May 2007 77p. Hanging Loose $15 (9781931236782)paper $25(9781931236799)hardcover.
Poetry magazine has used some of its Lily bequest to endow a prize for humor in poetry, which Billy Collins won. (If Henny Youngman said that, you might laugh. No one had to look very far to find him.) perhaps the next time Poetry awards the prize they will look far enough to find Paul Violi, whose new book, Overnight should win every prize for humor in poetry on the basis of two poems: “As I was Telling Dave and Alex Kelly” and “Counterman.” There is nothing light about Violi’s verse; his subject is the rich vitality of language his nose so keen and ear so sharp that he finds it in places like Islip, New York, and when order a “roast beef on rye, tomato and mayo.” Violi’s poems are fearless- humor courts failure at every turn-and beautifully constructed. He is one of a handful of American poets worth making a detour to hear read aloud. – William Corbett
The Phoenix Review, April 10th
North, Charles. Cadenza May 2007 76p Hanging Loose $15 (9781931236768)paper $25 (191236775)hardcover.
Charles North’s Cadenza continues his pursuit of what poetry can be. His poems are improbable and wholehearted engagements of a man’s imagination with life and language, which, here, are presented as harmonious entities. While North adeptly commands life-giving language in an eight-line poem like “My Ship Has Sails,” he is equally as adventurous with longer works like “Cadenza” and “Boul’ Mich. His work displays a particular ability to turn on a dime, yet also allows a beautiful poem such as “Romantic Note” to remain that. There’s nothing fussy or experimental here, just freestanding poems of original and exhilarating character, devoid of overbearing description.
- William Corbett
Newark Star-:Ledger, April 22nd
Winch, Terence. Boy Drinkers May 2007 76p Hanging Loose $15 (1931236805) paperback $25 (9781931236812)hardcover
Terence Winch is a poet and a founding member of Celtic Thunder, the storied Irish music group. “Boy Drinkers,” his mesmerizing new collection of autobiographical poems on growing up Irish-American in the Bronx, will be published next month by Hanging Loose Press. Winch spoke with freelance writer Dylan Foley by telephone from his office in Washington DC.
Q. What have you been reading?
My best friend is the poet and actor Michael Lally, who is originally from South Orange and lives in Maplewood. He has about 25 books out. He has written on of the great antiwar poems of our time called “March 18th, 2003,” that he wrote just before the Iraq War started. He’s an incredible writer. The poem has come out in several editions here and in Europe. It is a very prescient poem.
I read Alice McDermott’s “After This.” The book is wonderful. She can create a scene, a mood and an atmosphere unlike almost anyone else out there. It’s a very evocative novel.
I loved Richard Ford’s “The Lay of the Land.” I like Ford a lot. He’s a virtuoso writer. His writing has such a high energy and such humor built into it. You know you are righ tin the middle of American when you are reading his books.
I’m reading John Ashbery’s new book of poems right now, “A Wordly Country.” he has a wonderful ear for the way people speak. I’ve admired his work since the early 1970s. He’s about 80 now, but he has been publishing a new book every 18 months for the last 10 years. Asbhery’s known as a “difficult” writers, but if you get on his wavelength, it’s a great, great ride.
Finally, I’ve been reading Sam Harris’ “ Letter to a Christian Nation/” It is an extended essay that is a wonderful attack on religion. Ninety percent of Americans believe in God, yet we do so many evil things in the world. Harris examines what being a Christian nation means. – Dylan Foley
Jones, Hettie. Doing 70. May 2007. 96p. Hanging Loose, $25 (9781931236737); paper, $15 (9781931236720). 811.
Readers will instantly know that Jones is committed to being fully present in the world. That’s why she writes with such engaged interest about what we know well—everyday life. Whether presenting New York scenes with delightfully quirky insight, offering biting but brief political commentary, or lightly cloaking compact observations on the state of the world in simple words with sharp wit, Jones reveals the wisdom of someone who has really thought about life. Yet, her greatest gift, which will make readers wish they could befriend her, is the way she sympathetically connects with strangers, observing in the same way as a concerned friend carefully listens. From an actor neighbor she chats with to the young tow truck driver with whom she shares a long ride, she treasures fleeting life moments, though she never over dramatizes them or exaggerates their impact. With such groundedness and life gusto, it is easy to see why Jones’s poem “Ready or Not” states, “I think I won’t ever be ready/never ready, never/ enough already.” —Janet St. John
Los Angeles Times Review, April 15th
Larkin, Joan My Body: New and Selected Poems, May 2007 76p. Hanging Loose $16 (9781236744) $26(9781931236751) hardcover
For nearly 40 years, Joan Larkin has written poems that stake out a territory of relentless self-examination, taking on love and death, family and sexuality in a voice that is unsentimental, ruthless and clear-eyed.... My Body: New and Selected Poems gathers generous samplings from Larkin’s three previous collections, as well as a substantial array of new material. It’s a remarkable statement, tracing the evolution of a poet from her earliest efforts(“My mother gave me a bitter tongue. / My father gave me a turned back,” she begins “Rhyme of My Inheritance”) to the stunning sweep and simplicity of her current work.
“I’m older than my father when he turned/ bright gold and left his body with its used-up liver/ in the Faulkner Hospital, Jamaica Plain,” Larkin writes in “Afterlife.”
Best of all is the transcendent “Blackout Sonnets,” a sonnet crown (seven linked sonnets, joined by repeating first and last lines), which originally appeared in her 1986 book, “ A Long Sound.” “I drank anything and slept with everyone,” she acknowledges, “ kept my mouth shut about the abortion.”
This poetry without pity, in which despair leads not to degradation but to a kind of grace. –David L.Ulin
The Phoenix Review, April 10th
Violi, Paul. Overnight, May 2007 77p. Hanging Loose $15 (9781931236782)paper $25(9781931236799)hardcover.
Poetry magazine has used some of its Lily bequest to endow a prize for humor in poetry, which Billy Collins won. (If Henny Youngman said that, you might laugh. No one had to look very far to find him.) perhaps the next time Poetry awards the prize they will look far enough to find Paul Violi, whose new book, Overnight should win every prize for humor in poetry on the basis of two poems: “As I was Telling Dave and Alex Kelly” and “Counterman.” There is nothing light about Violi’s verse; his subject is the rich vitality of language his nose so keen and ear so sharp that he finds it in places like Islip, New York, and when order a “roast beef on rye, tomato and mayo.” Violi’s poems are fearless- humor courts failure at every turn-and beautifully constructed. He is one of a handful of American poets worth making a detour to hear read aloud. – William Corbett
The Phoenix Review, April 10th
North, Charles. Cadenza May 2007 76p Hanging Loose $15 (9781931236768)paper $25 (191236775)hardcover.
Charles North’s Cadenza continues his pursuit of what poetry can be. His poems are improbable and wholehearted engagements of a man’s imagination with life and language, which, here, are presented as harmonious entities. While North adeptly commands life-giving language in an eight-line poem like “My Ship Has Sails,” he is equally as adventurous with longer works like “Cadenza” and “Boul’ Mich. His work displays a particular ability to turn on a dime, yet also allows a beautiful poem such as “Romantic Note” to remain that. There’s nothing fussy or experimental here, just freestanding poems of original and exhilarating character, devoid of overbearing description.
- William Corbett
Newark Star-:Ledger, April 22nd
Winch, Terence. Boy Drinkers May 2007 76p Hanging Loose $15 (1931236805) paperback $25 (9781931236812)hardcover
Terence Winch is a poet and a founding member of Celtic Thunder, the storied Irish music group. “Boy Drinkers,” his mesmerizing new collection of autobiographical poems on growing up Irish-American in the Bronx, will be published next month by Hanging Loose Press. Winch spoke with freelance writer Dylan Foley by telephone from his office in Washington DC.
Q. What have you been reading?
My best friend is the poet and actor Michael Lally, who is originally from South Orange and lives in Maplewood. He has about 25 books out. He has written on of the great antiwar poems of our time called “March 18th, 2003,” that he wrote just before the Iraq War started. He’s an incredible writer. The poem has come out in several editions here and in Europe. It is a very prescient poem.
I read Alice McDermott’s “After This.” The book is wonderful. She can create a scene, a mood and an atmosphere unlike almost anyone else out there. It’s a very evocative novel.
I loved Richard Ford’s “The Lay of the Land.” I like Ford a lot. He’s a virtuoso writer. His writing has such a high energy and such humor built into it. You know you are righ tin the middle of American when you are reading his books.
I’m reading John Ashbery’s new book of poems right now, “A Wordly Country.” he has a wonderful ear for the way people speak. I’ve admired his work since the early 1970s. He’s about 80 now, but he has been publishing a new book every 18 months for the last 10 years. Asbhery’s known as a “difficult” writers, but if you get on his wavelength, it’s a great, great ride.
Finally, I’ve been reading Sam Harris’ “ Letter to a Christian Nation/” It is an extended essay that is a wonderful attack on religion. Ninety percent of Americans believe in God, yet we do so many evil things in the world. Harris examines what being a Christian nation means. – Dylan Foley
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