Carl Hancock Rux

Carl Rux's Pagan Operetta is a fresh volume of free verse. A seamless stitch of stanzas and paragraphs that navigates a tapestry of personal history and cultural identity. The collection might be jagged, though sharp points are plentiful, and they dig deep into the chest. The rapid fire musicality of "Blue Candy", the surreal odyssey that is "Asphalt Story", the strange blend of travelogue and eulogy found in "Postcard ...", and "Black Male Show", a social skewer that is both humorous and caustic.

Having seen Rux read selections from this volume a few years back, I can say that his voice rings out clear from the page. It is an unrelenting voice ripe with sorrow and yearning, bound up with hope, and wrapped in the mystical and unutterable, with all of these adjectives standing on a sidewalk, leaning against a wall.… (mehr)