Any book that starts off: “this book is dedicated to that guy (sorry, buddy, I’ve forgotten your name)…”, and has a first poem called, “Will You Please Fuck Off?” is alright by me. The stuff I like the least are the lists. Poems sort of look like lists. This guy’s poems not only look like lists, they are lists. Lists of the “bad” things that keep happening to him, lists of the “bad” things that keep happening to people he knows, lists of the “bad” things that have happened to people he doesn’t know. Lots of lists. But Nesca’s poems embrace life, both the good and the bad. It’s the good stuff, though (and there doesn’t seem to be very much of it), that really shines in these poems: She sat on the park bench, beside me, lifted her skirt, and there were her thighs. Or listen to this: “She woke up before the alarm. It was 6 a.m. She heard her husband snoring. She hadn’t heard him snore in years. She had, of late, made up her mind to leave him but she needed that extra push. The snoring did it.”
(mostly) poetry chapbook / publisher: Screamin’ Skull Press / main creator: Tony Nesca / $5 / 503-379 Hargrave, Winnipeg, MB, R3B 2K4 / [email protected]