Fresh Loaf

GENRE: A plate-thin, hardcover collection from a local contemporary poet

BACKSTORY: Guest, currently a visiting professor at the University of West Georgia, has been paralyzed from the neck down since a bicycle accident at age twelve.

SUGGESTIVE TITLE OF THE OPENING POEM: “User’s Guide to Physical Debilitation”

PUBLISHER’S ANGLE: Guest is the first poet Ecco has contracted in over a decade. If it’s been that long (or longer) since you’ve bought a book of poems, this would be a good place to start.

INDEX OF KNOWLEDGE: Like his contemporary Dean Young, Guest conjures information with a self-aware, surreal style. Mozart’s skull, ascetic Canadian monks, Werner Herzog, Kim Jong Il, and Wayne Gretzky all make appearances in the book, summoned like passing thoughts in an intimidating mind. (more…)

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1) The Rosebuds play the Earl.

2) Outbreak: Plagues That Changed History continues at the Global Health Odyssey Museum.

3) Kristian Bush plays Eddie’s Attic.

4) Paul Guest and Tom Lux hold a poetry reading at Decatur Library.

5) Local arts organizations perform Setting the Stage: Reflections on Human Rights, with an intro by Mayor Shirley Franklin, at Spelman College.

(Photo courtesy Merge Records)

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