I hate poetry. I usually find it self-indulgent, navel-gazing, cloying pap, an archaic art form that's long outstayed its relevance. In this brave new technological world where writing has evolved and anointed screenplay as endgame, poetry has been reduced to little more than a freakish sixth toe, as useful as an appendix. So why am I writing the introduction to a poetry book? Because Joel Landmine, that's why. Since first meeting Joel, I've been mesmerized by his work. A fixture on the San Francisco literary scene for years, he's etched out a name for himself by being exactly what I wish all poetry could be. Accessible. Relevant. Poignant and unforgettable. To quote Willy Wordsworth, Joel employs the "language really used by men." (Yes, I know about the Romantic Poets; I'm not a barbarian.) In short, in the battle of us vs. them, Joel is one of us. (If you have to ask, you are probably one of them.) Joel writes for the butchered and abandoned, the castoff and downtrodden, and is unlike any poet I have ever read, unique in the truest sense of the word. He excels at the conversation of the lowlife, but Joel's work is steeped in the ordinary, too, infusing pop culture with philosophy, eviscerating the minutia and mundane that sometimes yields a world of riches. At least to those of us who have nothing. Squalor paints his scene, dejection his theme-but it's love, however fleeting, bizarre, unholy, perverted or downright religious (in the strictest unorganized sense) that remedies. There is a burning love and passion that colors this work, the desire of one man to reach out in the dark and confusion to say, "Hey, baby, I'm just as fucked up as you. Let's have a smoke and compare tattoos. Then maybe later, we can get naked. Here, let me light that for you." Now that's the kind of poetry I want to read. Joe Clifford, author of 'Junkie Love' (Battered Suitcase Press, 2013)

The first verb in SB Stokes' magnum opus, A History of Broken Love Things, is "wanna." He is a poet of hope, expectation, and desire, which prepare us for the erratic path of life as it is actually lived: "a large weepy beast, / a guy with some hats, / a stark-raging husband, / an ineffectual queen." In the beautifully titled poem, "dark magick / a solitude by duke," he writes, "The piano pounds its own heart into bits." But even desolation offers its glittering souvenir. Read this book and prepare to have your life lifted, your heart broken. Paul Hoover, editor of Postmodern American Poetry

A collection of Frank Reardon's most recent work that covers the transitions of the poet as he has traversed the country and developed his style into a diverse and heartfelt voice that creates hope inside the turmoil of modern living while painting vivid images for readers to walk into like a road worn pair of shoes gifted to a barefoot traveler in order to make it a little bit further down the road. "Read Frank Reardon at your own risk. He'll open your heart with a corkscrew and leave you wide-eyed and longing for more." -Dan Fante, author of Chump Change, Mooch,"86'd" and Spitting Off Tall Buildings