$14.99
J.M. Green’s second chapbook, The Novice Angler, is really a first book. In a mere (in number) 22 poems, Green establishes a voice most poets take years to achieve, and then only if they are honest and brave enough to try. Green is both. There is such abundance here! The poems are steadfast in facing the past—a grandfather’s racism, sibling comedies, a stepfather’s love, the old barbershop, and the “wisdom” passed down from uncles. But they are equally funny and kind, with formal interludes (haiku stanzas; a sonnet that might be one of the sweetest ever written by a father to his daughter; wild sestinas about witches and the CIA and Kim Jong-il) and a generosity and sense of humor that always expands, never contracts into a whine. I’ve tried to think of the perspective closest to Green’s in my experience and I landed on J. F. Powers. Like Powers, this poet is no naif in his observations. This is not American fresh-faced optimism cleverly counterpointed against its darker edge. These poems are much funnier than that. They deliver poetry’s real pleasures, set in the wry music of our times.
–James Cummins, author of Still Some Cake
As a truly complete angler, J.M. Green uses barbed hooks, so even his evocative memory pieces (such as “1976” and “Sherwood Park Community Club”) catch us and sting as we go for the sensory bait. He’s also a poet who looks for unexpected angles, like an expressionist movie director. These poems are richly detailed and rewardingly disturbing, a pleasure to be caught by.
–John Philip Drury, author of Sea Level Rising
The Novice Angler
by J.M. Green
$14.99, paper
978-1-63534-276-5
2017
J.M. Green is the author of the chapbook Super Rich (Pudding House, 2008). He was born in Muncie, Indiana, grew up in Lima, Ohio, and currently lives near Cincinnati with his wife and daughter.
Nin Andrews (verified owner) –
One cannot help but feel moved by the combination of dark wit, honesty, and insights present in J.M. Green’s The Novice Angler. Personal, poignant, sometimes despairing, other times surreal, his poems stare back at the reader, demanding respect by their sheer authenticity. His is clearly a unique and exciting new voice for American poetry.
Nin Andrews, author of Why God Is a Woman
Diana Hume George (verified owner) –
On the poem “1976”
This one sneaks up on you, starting as what seems like a poem of nostalgic memory, and growing by degrees into a grim gaze, absolutely unblinking, at evil in the guise of family lore and love. It chills you to the bone.
Diana Hume George is the author of 12 books. She teaches in the MFA program at Goucher College, and is a co-director of The Chautauqua Writers’ Festival and contributing editor of Chautauqua Journal.