See, they're not all good.

In the efforts of fairness, I present you, dear reader, with this review of my book: http://reviews.coldfrontmag.com/2006/06/a_mnemonic_for_.html.

And for the record, Ben Harper kicks ass.

Postscript added 8/17:

I promised myself I wasn't going to defend myself, but there are a couple of things I'd like to address. When arranging the manuscript -- something I'd do every three months or so -- I laid the pages out in piles all over the living room. In earlier versions I separated sections so that there was a gradual change from the straight-forward lyric poems and the more adventurous, discursive ones. I started thinking, though, that I'd rather not suggest development (in the sense that I'm moving toward one pole or another) but rather that there is a subtle shift in subject matter rather than form, the latter poems being more metaphysical; toward that end I tried to balance each section so that there was a balance of forms and styles. Out of 210 poems, I ended up choosing around 70. I wanted a book that felt like it was a good value for the money invested. I get upset when I pay 17 dollars for a book and it has 55 pages, and I think this is the primary reason why people don't buy poetry books. Ghost Road was very supportive of my wanting to put out a longer book for a small price tag.

Having said that, when Joe got the manuscript he gave me a call and said "it's too fucking long". Of course this set off alarms because I trust his judgment, so I immediately called a few trusted mentors (poets I've worked with for over five years) and sent emails to several friends asking for honest opinions and they all said they thought the book was longer than usual but not too long. For the next week, I went through and thought about cutting 20 pages or so but I decided, in the end, that I was going to trust my instinct: I'd painstaking gone through the manuscript at least 6 times and these were the poems, for better or worse, I wanted in my first collection. It spans some eight years of work.

I will post links to good reviews and bad reviews. It is up to individual readers to make decisions for themselves -- I do want to say, however, that nothing in the book has gone unconsidered. I doubt that any poet publishing a book has not gone through and agonized about every little thing in it. I stand by my work and feel it is important to let everyone see a full picture of how the book is being received.