Cinema Verite is a collection of 46 ekphrastic poems from award-winning poet, Sam Rasnake. While other poets have explored the entwined connections of film and poetry, no American poet is doing so more effectively today than Sam Rasnake. He writes: "Like the puppeteer's hands/ that refuse to hide or the stir/ of wings... something/ lets go its darker elegance." But the elusive other in these poems never goes away; not at all. What is seemingly lost to the speaker of this and so many other poems in this book appears luminously on every page, as if projected by the magic lanterns of old - framed, examined - with each image fully realized. There is not an outtake, not a single process-shot among the poems in Cinema Verite. This is the real stuff; the long-rumored master reel - language from the very heart of things. - Greg Rappleye, author of A Path Between Houses, winner of the Brittingham Prize, and Figured Dark, winner of the University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series

Welcome to Elsie's World, a place rich in color and setting, one that will break your heart and make you laugh in a single paragraph. A place where Walter Bjorkman makes characters come alive and linger long after you've turned the last page.