For a small collection of small poems that I thought most would scoff at when I originally assembled them, The Vessel of The Now has garnered overwhelmingly positive support from those who have purchased it and heard the poems at readings. I’m very grateful and also an egomaniac, so I wanted to share two people who, one concisely and another gushlingly, “got” the chap to a degree I didn’t think many would. Not to say The Vessel of The Now is super complex, it’s just that I have no faith in my own ability to communicate. So these kindly reviews were just the injection of faith in my writing that I needed.
While Mika Gratzke (he/they) might be a bit overzealous in calling it “high concept poetry,” I am sweet on their likening the chapbook to “a Taoist meditation on form and formlessness.” And his final sentence, which takes into account the goodies the publisher provides with it (stickers and buttons), goes so far as to make that part of the book in a manner that really does emphasize what the book has so much fun contemplating. All that in one Mastodon toot!
Courtesy of I Buy Your Pamphlet on The Internet of Words, S Reeson (she/they) really took to the chap. You can read the whole review here, but I think they sum it up excellently with, “Every time I looked at the review and then back to the work, my ideas altered. I think this is the trick inside the pages that is most satisfying of all.” I apologize to and cannot thank Reeson enough for the amount of turbulence I caused them during the review process, but theirs was exactly the response I was hoping for from readers.
I’m really not gloating here. I find that almost impossible. But the joy of these connections, the understanding between writer and reader, is one I treasure and felt I needed to share. My thanks to any and all who’ve read or will read and reread The Vessel of The Now (available for purchase here).
Affairs of Ink 