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About

My name is Terrance, and I'm a 23-year-old father of two beautiful children. That's always the most important thing to tell, at least in my opinion. But for those of you who wonder what I do for a living, you'll be pleased to know that I am a freelance writer, and perhaps a poor one at that. But, I keep getting paid so that's always good news!

Busy.Busy.Busy - But A New Reading

Stamped: 6:19 PM

It's probably been noticed that I've not posted a reading in quite sometime, which sorta sucks, I realize. I usually like to knock out a book a day, but I simply haven't had the time. Today, however, I was able to get a book of poetry done - in roughly 30 minutes. It's the same author who wrote Landscape With Fragmented Figures, a book I wrote a review for. My review will be published by Small Press Magazine later this month, I suspect. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to come up with a picture of the book. I suspect the only way I would be able to acquire one - without surfing the Internet for hours - would be to scan the copy I have, but I don't feel like it. 

Jeff Vande Zande's Last Name First, First Name Last is wholly about the blue-collar life so many people in the industrial Mid-West live. The poems are very honest, descriptive, and well-written. The poems are mostly uniform and the author doesn't play around too much with formatting, so if you're looking for visual stimulation, you won't get it. The book was published by a very small press, so the book itself - the publishing job - is rather shoddy, which surprises me a great deal. The publisher also produces Blue Collar Review, a quarterly journal of mostly poetry which is almost always nice looking. However, it's not necessarily the look of the book, but its content, that matters. The poems are good, but I prefer Vande Zande's newest collection of poetry, which contains some of those in Last Name, entitled Poems: New, Used, and Rebuilds. That book isn't just my favorite collection written by this author, but one of my favorite collections, period. 

Either way, Last Name First, First Name Last is satisfying and inexpensive. It's only $5 and well worth it. 

You can buy the book here

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  • Blogger Proletariat says so:
    February 22, 2009 at 5:42 AM  

    Some poets, I think, go a little bit crazy with the language and ideas. Seriously, if a poem is inaccessible, then it's not a good poem. Currently, I don't write very good poems, but I'm still learning. One thing I have learned, though, is that it must be accessible. top