The Overnight Shift by David R. DiSarro

David R. DiSarro is currently an Associate Professor of English at Endicott College in Beverly, MA.  His work has previously appeared in The Rye Whiskey Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, Bending Genres, The Rome Review, The Hawaii Pacific Review, among others.  David’s first published chapbook, I Used to Play in Bands, is available from Finishing Line Press.  He currently lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with his wife, Riley, five children, and two rambunctious dogs.

PRAISE:

“The poems in David DiSarro’s, The Overnight Shift, presents readers with a compelling, quintessentially American, working-class world of viscous dining, drinking, smoking, and the beauty of the natural world cycling between fertility and death. Whether stopped by the side of the road or in a field with dandelions, readers feel the push and pull between freedom and desire to take care of those we love. DiSarro’s speakers are multifaceted and real, navigating joy and disappointment, birth and loss, swaying in the navigation of staying whole. In “The War,” the speaker says, “[n]o one ever tells you / how to deal with surrender” and it’s not clear if these speakers ever uncover that lesson, but they do move forward with tenacity finding moments of beauty, even under the crushing weight of loss and toil.”

~ Sarah A. Chavez, Author of like everything else we loved

“The Overnight Shift is an apt metaphor for life in 21^st century America. The vivid imagery in these poems makes the invisible visible, brings it to life in all of its heartbreaking and beautiful intensity.”

~ Timothy Mayers, Author of (Re)Writing Craft

“A characteristic of the best in contemporary poetry is its precision of language, a poetic skill more important now, in the Post-truth era, than perhaps ever before. DiSarro’s The Overnight Shift addresses topics well known to most people who have been in relationships. But the poet’s proficient articulation of those relationships makes us see them as if for the first time. The human connection is vital, and DiSarro makes it that way in his poems. Refresh your life! Read these poems!”

~ Patrick Bizzaro, Author of Fog at the Manassas Battlefield

“David DiSarro could be describing his own stunning book when he writes “we say this/ in whispers/ in the bubble/ of our living rooms,/ in the fragility/ of being witness…” These are loving poems that describe a life that is at once beautiful and perched on the edge of a stark realization: that each day begins with “the gray skull of morning.” The Overnight Shift reveals DiSarro as an amazingly clear poet drawing us a detailed map of a complex heart.”

~ Peter Davis, Author of Band Names and Other Poems