Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

(Otoliths, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9872010-5-8) by Joey Madia In March of 2010 I opened my review of Bobbi Lurie’s collection of poems titled Grief Suite by saying: “Bobbi Lurie writes poetry that hurts.” Some two and a half years later, Lurie has presented the reader with a substantially different group of poems in both form and substance. Different, yes—but equally compelling. the morphine poems are 55 pieces that vary in length from a page and a quarter to a single sentence. All are run-on and stream of consciousness in form, with the varied content tethered to Lurie’s experiences during treatment for cancer. The first poem, “horrors of morphine,” is also the longest at more than a page, and sets the stage for all that is to come. It is here that we first experience Lurie’s thoughts on the state of poets and poetry, a theme that pervades: “they want to be among you if you offer them a contract for a book they believe will make them famous but if y

 (self-published, 2012; available on Amazon.com in for several devices) Take a moment to imagine American society’s reliance on social networking, Genetically Modified food, and pharmaceutical over-prescription continuing on its current upward arc. What will a virtual-reality world of synthetic foods, drinks, mood-enhancers, genetic manipulation, and digital economic opportunity-building run by the biomedical, religious, media, political, military, and educational establishments look like? If you are thinking bleak and slave-like, then there is much to appeal to you in The STARLING Connection , author Theodore Webb’s four-part vision of life in 30 years. Part Phillip K. Dick and part John Hughes’ prototypical high school meets Tim Burton’ Edward Scissorhands , The STARLING Connection is a sobering and often times violent and frightening look at what our world might become if things continue on their current trajectory. Taking the premise that the more things