Vertical's Currency

Poetry. Got my clove cigarettes and a hunk/ of challah smeared with ersatz butter. / My imagined Jew beanie is warming/ my alleged brains/ as monochromatic Clarkson Street/ looms like an overstuffed burrito. (from Leaving It up to You) Joel Lewis has written some of the best jazz poems I've ever read. In VERTICALS CURRENCY he gives us all the humor and empathy an ethno-glossary of North Jersey can provide. Imagine Jim Brodey writing prescriptions on Dr. Williams' pad. RX: One urine puck with coffee every 2 hours for the blues, followed by a dip in the Lou Costello Pool. These poems come at you over the counter like an anodyne with eyes ... Use as needed. And often (Michael Gizzi). A well known anthologist and editor as well as a poet, Joel Lewis won the Ted Berrigan award for his most recent book, HOUSE RENT BOOGIE (Yellow Press) also available from SPD. Lewis is a New Jersey native, former social worker, and luftmensch, who has taught at Rutrgers University, New School University and the College of Saint Elizabeth.