As you read through the pages, let it be a time of self examination between you and God. Ask yourself these questions, am I just a church goer bound in religion or do I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and has He set me free? If you were to die today, would you make heaven your home for all eternity or would you bust hell wide open? I pray that you will be able to answer without any doubt that you would make heaven your home. Remember, it's religion verses relationship, Hell verses Heaven. It's your choice.

"The heart is a chamber of ghosts, some who linger sweet and willing, some who are trapped and rattle sorrowful chains. In 'Cloverleaf, ' Geer Austin illuminates these specters of passion, their transparent skin illuminated by scent, smile, dream, and emotion. These are poems of beginnings and ends, almosts and not enoughs. These are poems of butterflies and ravens, a celebration of the joys and grievances of the golden thread that binds us together: love." -- BRYAN BORLAND, author of LESS FORTUNATE PIRATES: POEMS FROM THE FIRST YEAR WITHOUT MY FATHER "Austin's poems manage the often impossible feat of being simultaneously ironic and soulful, wry and heartfelt, clever and impassioned. With simple playful beauty, Austin stealthily unpacks the various ways gay men fall in love, forsake desire, grapple with passion, and sometimes - albeit fleetingly - achieve grace." -- WILLIAM JOHNSON, Managing Editor, LAMBDA LITERARY REVIEW

These poems, voiced by stones, speaking for the poet and for humanity, are beautiful and peculiar. Weinraub cracks open craft to reveal humane interiors. Fixed forms with meter and rhyme, tenderly chiseled, deftly sculpted, pulse with regret, joy and a hundred other sentiments. Bright diction and an impressive control of syntax allows Weinraub to modulate tone and music. Wit and gorgeous capitulations abound in this book. "Gentlemen prefer blonde Crystals" gives way to "imperfections are a garden." These poems "forge a new world out of stone," a landscape populated by jade, garnet, and onyx with time-rich thoughts, blood-rich emotion. - EDUARDO C. CORRAL, author of "Slow Lightning, " winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, 2012;
"Lapidary" is an original and brilliant collection of poems that offers insights into the various states of human nature through the voices of different stones. This book is a must have, and it will be avidly read for years to come. - EDWARD ODWITT, writer & illustrator;
In "Lapidary" - stones, semi-precious, precious - stones talk to you, skillfully, convincingly and you believe them, you believe them - THOMAS LUX, acclaimed poet and teacher, the Bourne chair in poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology

" A] clear-eyed, queer exploration of urban characters and dilemmas from the perspective of the talented African-American New York Poet, playwright, and fiction writer, Austin Alexis. In free verse and prose poems, Alexis offers an enticing palette of ordinary and outre people who populate New York ... a fine chapbook, well worth perusing." - CLIFTON SNIDER, Author of "The Alchemy of Opposites" (Chiron Review Press, 2000)
"Wow. You have a winner with Austin Alexis. What a wonderful poet, and what an elegant, simple, lovely book." - MARY OROVAN, former Features Editor of "US Camera Magazine,""

"Efrayim's poetry truly embodies the experience of a contemporary Jew who has found a very deep inspiration in his ancient roots. There is a certain freshness and bright sunny quality that comes with his pure simplicity which cuts to the very core of his growing relationship with G-d. Yet, there is the tension and frustration of one who has seen what he, and those around him, could become if only they would. He is both optimist and realist." - RABBI YOSSI MENDELSON, Congregation Machane Chodesh; "This book is a blast of Hasidic bebop ecstasy." - CRAIG FISHBANE, Brooklyn poet and resident of Bensonhurst; "Thank you for the poem 'Mordechai's Day at the Beach'] . . . beautiful . . . best wishes." - JOHN ZORN, American composer and saxophone player; "His poems themselves are heartfelt psalms." - "SMALL PRESS REVIEW"

"IN LOVING MEMORY is an elegant, elegiac poem by Roxanne Hoffman, illustrated by Edward Odwitt in a style reminiscent of classic Edward Gorey. This somber, tender and darkly ironic verse is about the ceremonies of death and grieving...as well as their parallels to the rituals of abiding love and remembrance. IN LOVING MEMORY should be on everyone's shelves as it reflects on one of the darkest human experiences with insight and humanity in a charmingly gothic presentation." -Garth von Buchholz, Author, publisher and member of the National Book Critics' Circle "Roxanne Hoffman has been a whirlwind of poetics for some time now. IN LOVING MEMORY is not only a worthy addition to her oeuvre but an original, deeply human-and warmly humane-vision of the rites of final passage. Of course there is trauma, that of irreconcilable loss, but here Roxanne brings the full coin of her poetic mind to bear. In sustained elegiacal rhyme she paints a methodically wrought landscape that is beautifully subjective yet utterly universal. The portraiture is further enriched by the stark, almost child-like illustrations of Edward Odwitt. The sum effort is a melodic, imaginative riposte to the reverberations of loss, a moment heartbreakingly, heartwarmingly wrought into poetry." -Adam Henry Carriere, Publisher of "Danse Macabre"

As you read through the pages, let it be a time of self examination between you and God. Ask yourself these questions, am I just a church goer bound in religion or do I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and has He set me free? If you were to die today, would you make heaven your home for all eternity or would you bust hell wide open? I pray that you will be able to answer without any doubt that you would make heaven your home. Remember, it's religion verses relationship, Hell verses Heaven. It's your choice.

"We really enjoy your use of imagery, descriptive language and insight."--Pat Swenson, Editor Emeritus, AVOCET, A JOURNAL OF NATURE POEMS "Besides being wonderful poems they have an undercurrent, sometimes a flood-tide of sensuality, Eros and Thanatos, which gives the book a life above and beyond the beautiful words."--George Spencer, Co-host of ABC No Rio

"In THRUM Joel Allegretti, deftly and delightfully, strums his magical musical instrument, which is poetry, as he forges fresh forms of songs and stories that are inspired by strummers' strings. 'Context is everything, ' Allegretti reminds us, and we're planted in the heart of a global ancient/modern orchestra. Prepare yourself for the revelatory performance."-- Martine Bellen, Author of TALES OF MURASAKI AND OTHER POEMS, 1997 National Poetry Series selection

In a quietly seductive voice Lisella takes the reader on journey after journey, to exotic locales like Havana, Venice and Dubrovnik, places steeped in myth and bloodshed. With crystalline descriptions reminiscent of Elizabeth Bishop, she mixes the haunted elegance of the old world and the disturbed consumerism of the new. TWO NAKED FEET is brilliantly wired with the tension of paradox. It is about exile and the movement of peoples, the destruction and pastiche of cultures, the chasm between the idealized world and the colloquial one. Lisella writes with depth and simplicity. Her "I" rarely steps outside of the observing eye to become autobiographical, and yet the poems are remarkable for their passion.--STEPHANIE DICKINSON, Award-winning author of HALF GIRL and ROAD OF FIVE CHURCHES