Joel Lewis, Learning from New Jersey
with visual works by Tim Daly
ISBN: 978-1-58498-056-8, paper, $14.95
"In the crazy wisdom of no coincidence, Joel Lewis’s collection of linked poem, Learning from New Jersey hit the bed table along with Osip Mandelstam’s 50 Poems. Brothers in predilections, both poets have drawn from an ironic, loving regard for their cities. In Lewis’s“research expedition into/ an ordinary night,” his poems draw from his long time legend garnering, epic
harrowing, factlet- threshing observations of the New Jersey territories. In these poems “the white noise of secret radios” crackles amid the mysterious geography of “Great Notch” and “Ong’s Hat.” Learning from New Jersey is as energetic, faceted and textured as the place it evokes.." --Kimberly Lyons
"Joel Lewis is a war journalist, a photo-journalist and always embedded. He's tape-recording YOU, Paterson, Hoboken, and
Frank Sinatra because his life depends on it. Story-teller and known for an infinite taste for jazz, Lewis asserts a lot: slantscapes a la Schuyler but much dirtier: the light rails, poverty, and comical revolts of no-generation in the no-environments of Robert Smithson and the whole corrosive company.These are reservoirs and archives for the future Ice Age in New Jersey." --David Shapiro
"As the only member of the fourth graduating class of the New York School, Joel Lewis knows exactly when it became true that “Across theHudson / there is nothing / but the methadone called money.” Bracing for the impact of the sleek and vapid nightmares of Capital, Lewis’s poems stuff themselves with the daydreams and rubble of Labor, beautiful funny horrible stories that just get worse as a few palookas take the median income ever higher even as the population density goes through the roof. Unequal parts Robert Smithson, Captain Beefheart, Harvey Pekar and TedBerrigan, Lewis works his ass off archiving fads and tracking down pickpocket schools and other legends (Saddam Hussein’s love of Doritos?), and for what? Joel Lewis is one of the few poets going who is consistently as staggering and entertaining as the daily paper and coffee. Your hands may get dirty, but you'll definitely get stirred up." --Jordan Davis
ISBN: 978-1-58498-056-8, paper, $14.95
"In the crazy wisdom of no coincidence, Joel Lewis’s collection of linked poem, Learning from New Jersey hit the bed table along with Osip Mandelstam’s 50 Poems. Brothers in predilections, both poets have drawn from an ironic, loving regard for their cities. In Lewis’s“research expedition into/ an ordinary night,” his poems draw from his long time legend garnering, epic
harrowing, factlet- threshing observations of the New Jersey territories. In these poems “the white noise of secret radios” crackles amid the mysterious geography of “Great Notch” and “Ong’s Hat.” Learning from New Jersey is as energetic, faceted and textured as the place it evokes.." --Kimberly Lyons
"Joel Lewis is a war journalist, a photo-journalist and always embedded. He's tape-recording YOU, Paterson, Hoboken, and
Frank Sinatra because his life depends on it. Story-teller and known for an infinite taste for jazz, Lewis asserts a lot: slantscapes a la Schuyler but much dirtier: the light rails, poverty, and comical revolts of no-generation in the no-environments of Robert Smithson and the whole corrosive company.These are reservoirs and archives for the future Ice Age in New Jersey." --David Shapiro
"As the only member of the fourth graduating class of the New York School, Joel Lewis knows exactly when it became true that “Across theHudson / there is nothing / but the methadone called money.” Bracing for the impact of the sleek and vapid nightmares of Capital, Lewis’s poems stuff themselves with the daydreams and rubble of Labor, beautiful funny horrible stories that just get worse as a few palookas take the median income ever higher even as the population density goes through the roof. Unequal parts Robert Smithson, Captain Beefheart, Harvey Pekar and TedBerrigan, Lewis works his ass off archiving fads and tracking down pickpocket schools and other legends (Saddam Hussein’s love of Doritos?), and for what? Joel Lewis is one of the few poets going who is consistently as staggering and entertaining as the daily paper and coffee. Your hands may get dirty, but you'll definitely get stirred up." --Jordan Davis