Gnawing on a Thin Man – by Ray Amorosi

by Ray Amorosi

You can feel these stirring, whirl-winding poems, each echoing each, bits and pieces surfacing here, disappearing there, only to resurface, thrillingly unexpectedly, spinning you around again.  “One thing leads to another” and another and another; and when at the end you’re “on (your) knees, right ear to the ground,” the rumbling below is palpable.  Don’t bother packing a lunch: the larder is brimming.  you’ll soon be gnawing away like a beaver.  The marrow of these poems is all the nourishment you need.  Maybe toss one or two to the dogs outside.  They’ll “bark softer, they’re silvering.”  If I were still teaching, this “fluent” collection would be required reading.  Very few poets can write poems like Amorosi’s, in which “mercy and truth are met together and kiss.”  -Stuart Friebert