"Donnelly, Patrick. Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin. Four Way. Apr. 2012. 108p. ISBN 9781935536215. pap. $15.95. If “every gesture triggers/ a cascade of ghost-futures,” then every gesture here also triggers ghost-pasts, told in language both tough and lovely and with an unsentimental regard for mortality and “this cup/ of tears and fire and gall.” Donnelly’s second book (after The Charge) is also cut through with some elegant translations of Japanese poems (done with Stephen D. Miller)....
Frank, Patrick Ryan. How the Losers Love What’s Lost. Four Way. Apr. 2012. 80p. ISBN 9781935536208. pap. $15.95. A character actor (“I play an unlovely face/ for laughs”). A hunter (“dawn, like sickness, starts/ slowly”). A vet (“I was happy in the war./ Just one great thing”). A one-handed peeping tom (“All he wanted was that little thrill/ of seeing people happy”). In his first book, winner of the Four Way Books Intro Prize in Poetry, Frank draws portraits of startling forthrightness."
