Böcker av Jason Baldinger

"Jason Baldinger's American Aorta pulses like a midwestern road trip to the dustbowl, the soundtrack a steady thump of pavement and beating sun. You can smell the diesel and fast food on your fingers and in your clothes. "In a roadhouse/I order a gallon of sweet tea/a platter of catfish/let the air conditioner be my spine." Baldinger brings us to each new scene with largehearted compassion and tender observation. From "painkillers and double shift towns" and "for miss woodchopper" to "emphysema highways" and "bonnie parker heart", characters are sketched here from dust and rust, their souls on subtle display. This collection is a lifetime of travel and connection through the American rustbelt with gracious tribute at each stop, asking its readers to return, to savor the words like a slow sun laying itself wide at the edge of the sky. "After the speakeasy/stars pour molten metal/sparks of rustbelt towns/fade in a kansas city skyline... as the hours flash on/age plays tag with us." -Jonie McIntire, Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio (2022-2024), author Semidomesticated (1st edition, Red Flag Poetry 2020 chapbook contest winner; second edition Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2022)Jason Baldinger is a poet and photographer from Pittsburgh, PA. He's penned fifteen books of poetry, the newest of which include: A History of Backroads Misplaced: Selected Poems 2010-2020 (Kung Fu Treachery), and This Still Life (Kung Fu Treachery) with James Benger. His first book of photography, Lazarus, as well as two ekphrastic collaborations (with Rebecca Schumejda and Robert Dean)are forthcoming. His work has appeared across a wide variety of online sites and print journals. You can hear him read from his work on Bandcamp and on lps by The Gotobeds and Theremonster. His website can be found at jasonbaldinger.com

The thing that gets me about Jason Baldinger''s work is this: despite being wildly prolific, it''s these poems. The poems get better, get tighter, get more honest. It''s not always going to be a pretty picture, but Baldinger - especially here in A Threadbare Universe - draws you in with each first line, creates a little world where we get to look through his eyes while he wields language like it''s music; syncopated rhythms, the skillful repetition of assonance and consonance, a sprinkling of slant and internal rhyme give these poems structures in which they dance. These poems have grit and they bite and they leave you speechless at the sheer miracle of being alive on a sunny day, barreling down the road, shaking the city dust and hustling for cash weariness in the winds of the Great Plains.Shawn PaveyAuthor of Survival Tips for the Pending ApocalypseIn Jason Baldinger''s latest book, "A Threadbare Universe" he takes you on a whirlwind ride to hell and back. The poems travel through forgotten towns where the unemployment check is a relic from another time. They take you on journeys from Pittsburgh to Evansville, Indiana, moving further along through Kentucky to the middle of Kansas. And within the desolation, little sparks of light throw out signals from this stellar poem: "The streets are empty" -we look for heroes to save this never democracy / Christianity and Hollywood led us astray. And the positive; a redemption of the new madness that haunts our each and every step hits us in this final line: we can stop this / we have to fill the streets. A powerful book that begs to be read.Richard D. HouffAuthor, journalist, and former editor of Heeltap MagazineJason Baldinger''s writing is an example of the best American poetry today. A Threadbare Universe takes America''s temperature and awakens us. It''s a poignant call from complacency, a brilliant rendition, breathtaking in its solace and lament.Jyl AnaisAuthor of Soft Out SpokenBeneath the blue collar of Baldinger''s poems lies dirt, nostalgia, a sweet solitude built of both victory and sadness. To read is to ride shotgun with road map an unfolded wreckage with America hungover in the backseat. Every stop to stretch legs and take a piss is colored by working blues and morning afters. There is coming-of-age, and there is coming to terms--this collection of work exquisitely calls forth the latter. Nikki AllenPoet