Poetry for the after-hours, later than the night. With "Smoke Rings", John Pietaro, a writer whose work is impassioned with the literature of rebellion, the heritage of noir and the urbanity downtown, presents his debut chapbook, a terse, dark and sometimes satirical homage to New York at night. "Smoke Rings" encompasses the edge of the city's creative tapestry, its free jazz, punk culture, radical verse, bold performance and revolutionary politics casting the vision. Plainly put, here's a collection of works from just beneath the underground. CONTENTS: Haze/5:03AM (for Steve Dalachinsky)/Discreet Foundlings of Quiet Places (for the Velvet Underground)/Blue (for Miles)/Dancing to Incessant June (for Bern Nix)/The People of Night/Impressions (for Coltrane)/Langston/Sonic Incursion/Robert Quine on the Rocks/The Lonely (for Ornette)/Conjured and Cast (for Kenneth Fearing)/Burroughs Inferno/Now's the Time That Wasn't/Chordal Clouds & Whispers (for Ran Blake)/The Late-Night Breakfast Special

NIGHT PEOPLE and Other Tales of Working New York - Preface is by noted historian Paul Buhle. NIGHT PEOPLE is a collection unashamed to be called 'contemporary proletarian literature'. The energy and emotions within these stories are of the people, the workers who make the City run. But this book's scope also reaches into the asphalt itself and the mountains above--heralding the heartbeat of the land mass beneath us, acting as both oracle and protagonist. Night People speaks of those who labor on or who struggle with joblessness, those who strive toward artistic goals or advocate for others, those who face challenges of conscience and those who are simply of the streets. It brings to life the people who provide the soundtrack, the color, the breadth: those who thrive and those who perish in New York's wake. Here is a love song to reality, mourning the anguish and championing the everyday. --Author John Pietaro is a writer and musician. By day, he works in the Labor Movement in NYC.