Life in the second circle

the long version

This volume is the first collection from the author, finalist in the 2011 Able Muse Book Award. His poetry globe-trots in time and place. It teems with such culturally diverse characters and scenes as Genghis Khan and Muhammad Ali; a pithy mise-en-scene of a Venice travelogue; Brighton Beach in Florida and its natives or turistas; and what can happen in Japan on tatami mats or behind shoji screens, whether you are a geisha or samurai or gaijin. His themes span the mystical to the hard-edged and "badass," fluently deployed in formal poems in received or nonce forms and free verse. From the narrative to the imagistic and even the surreal, his versecraft is eclectic, brimming with wit and wisdom, and realized with the craft of a master storyteller. He has created a collection of unique pleasures.