Daniel Joshua Nagelberg
Quit Me

“Quit Me is the third collection of poetry after Man Falling Backwards Down Stairs and Anger Report by Chicago poet Daniel Joshua Nagelberg. And with Quit Me, this poet has refined his disillusioned craft to a fine point and sticks it in life's eye. Some might finish Quit Me and dismiss the writing as a liquor induced hate for all humanity. But I disagree. I think he would view the world as a hopeless retch regardless. His poems are a punch to the face of anyone who wears rose colored glasses. They're stories that expose the wounds of human nature and lay it out for all to see as he views it, bleak. These free form poems are for those who have no hope and those who'd like to know how that feels.” - Chris Huntley

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Daniel Joshua Nagelberg
The Anger Report

Daniel Joshua Nagelberg's "Anger Report" is a condemnation of frivolity. His determinate observations of a stark and imposing lifestyle are purposeful and loaded as a Gatling gun. His familiar surreal environments also appear in this collection and they are stunning in their creepiness and violence. This is not to say that we readers are being led around the block to a continuation of his previous work,"Man Falling Backwards Down Stairs".

These writings have crawled or leaked out from the concepts of the former work. The temperature has been turned up and down repeatedly to further confuse the lust, loathing, awareness, bitterness, admonition and premonition. There is a lot of drinking and a lot of vitriol derived from a private life dominated by the constant urban presence of filth, disturbance, suffering, vermin, horror, poverty and ignorance. There are true to life events in bars, on buses, in the liquor store, at juvenile parties and on the floor of the bathroom. Mr. Nagelberg's stirring reclamation of these images as well as the shocking scenes of his imagination are as horrifying as any by Kurt Vonnegut even at his most pragmatic and brutal. There is a war going on both outside in Mr. Nagelberg's neighborhood as well as in the recesses of his mind. There is also some humor here interspersed sparingly to promote a balanced understanding of the purpose of this book. Daniel Joshua Nagelberg's "Anger Report" is written as if these were the last poems on Earth.

Daniel Joshua Nagelberg
Man Falling Backwards Down Stairs

Art is not created by the satisfied. The satisfied look out on the morning and accept the world as it is thus negating the desire for judgement. Like a sniper at a turd parade Daniel Joshua Nagelberg has the ills of his world in the crosshairs. Part scrutiny, part reticence, part fable, part rant, "Man Falling Backwards Down Stairs" is an outstanding exposition of a dissatisfied urban life. Daniel Joshua Nagelberg is at an imaginary bar with Bukowski on one side and Algren on the other quietly observing the rest of the villians have their way with each other. In the present climate of suspicion and fear, "Man Falling Backwards Down Stairs" is a welcome window of honest dynamic emotions. Much like Rumi's treaties of lust, debauchery and understanding through intoxication Daniel Joshua Nagelberg's visions of a wicked world gone wild are engaging, startling and often terrifying in their familarity.

Zebulun
Say It With Silence

If one was ever curious as to what it felt like to be crucified by a man who uses surgical needles, a sledgehammer and a unique and scathing voice as his weapons, look no further; Zebulun has arrived. Armed with his new collection of poems, Say It With Silence, you can be spared the physical pain that comes along with a ritual sacrifice and read this tremendous work that is anything but silent. From line to line, Zebulun possesses a tone that can shift from comforting whisper to frightening bark. Divided into three sections, Verses Without Choruses, Bad Words and Twisting in the Wind, Zebulun develops both questions and answers to confront the banality of standardized living. Not only does he challenge you, he forces you to evaluate yourself in his quest to incinerate the average. No comparisons can ever be made to his work. It is a unique experience that could never be duplicated thus making Say It With Silence essential reading.

Zebulun
No For An Answer

“No For An Answer” is much like a kaleidoscope or rather collide-o-scope that shifts between different shapes and shades of darkness in the life of its author. Zebulun delivers a new collection of almost spectral pieces about a man who can sometimes laugh at himself and his past and sometimes just simply be haunted by the misery surrounding him.

Relationships, politics and society are only a few of the themes that “No For An Answer” showers bullets upon. In his declaration of not accepting the mundane, the slow, the give-up, the pass-out, Zebulun still manages to put an arm around anybody who watched his or her lives be interfered with then followed by a healing drink.