Drumming Armageddon

Often it is said of contemporary music that it’s the soundtrack of our lives. If so, Drumming Armageddon is a poetic rendering of that soundtrack: Rock, Country, Jazz, Pop, Folk, The Blues—they’re the genres comprising it, and they all are present in this collection. The poems pay homage to the artists—Dylan, Clapton, Lennon, Crow, The Beatles, Elvis—and track the poet’s personal musical biography: his experiences and memories the music both relates to and marks. The poems, like the music, have plenty of swagger. Finally, though, they remind us that, at their best, poetry is music, music poetry.

THE WORD SWAGGER

Swagger is a nice word most

especially when there is a deficit of swagger.

Swagger is what you crave,

like the full tilt grit of Janis Joplin,

or the guttural smolder of James Brown.

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