Echoes and Omens

John M. Yozzo's newest collection of poems, retrospective, elegiac, tactful (or not), and transcendent musings lampoons our daily pretentions and empathizes with disappointments. His voice often startles with its sudden familiarity and humor, It is fun waiting/like a dork/in a bar/for you.... Whether he's paying tribute to his wife, surviving "Farm Livin," probing death, /why an evening's preoccupation/death? but not yours, lest/you'd be scraping life crumb/by crumb from the cool smooth floor/instead of wordsmithing... or scolding politicians, Yozzo embraces life in all its chaos and reminds us that a simple life is the gateway to otherness.