Scratching Lottery Tickets on a Street Corner by Jon Bishop

“A touching chronicle of things loved and things lost. These are poems filled with sharply observed detail, and suffused with humane wisdom and quiet melancholy.”

–Charles Coe – author of All Sins Forgiven: Poems for My Parents.

Scratching Lottery Tickets on a Street Corner shows what can happen when a former journalist like Jon Bishop takes up the poet’s pen. Bishop’s first book of poems highlights the excitement possible when the skill of precise observation combines with a remarkable command of language. Time after time Bishop captures and preserves the otherwise fleeting moment—the changing light of day, the angst of solitude-becoming-loneliness—all rendered in tableaux that are as affecting as they are memorable.

–Rod Kessler, author of Off in Zimbabwe and professor emeritus at Salem State University.

This is down-to-earth poetry, written with keen observation of life and its complexities, wry humor, and honest self-awareness. A good read.

 –Ann Taylor, author of The River Within.