I travel in rusting burned-out sedans

<p><strong>Poems that dive move surprise. Lyrical laments. Love poems. Rants with bite. Poems from the “corner of Lyric and Strange.” A “hip-hop sermon/montage” on America and the state of its dream. Sardonic humor. It's all there and more in Jim Bohen's first book of poetry I travel in rusting burned-out sedans.</strong></p><p> </p><p><strong>It's in slices from a life of writing — remembering the first day of school singing the rock band blues growing older grandparent-hood. It's in the ominous tone that lurks behind the opening poem quiet to the weary rhythmic distress of the closing Cycle.</strong></p><p> </p><p><strong>In between there are tender looks at the past. bitter rants about injustice and mortality. There's some delightful fun whether it's playing with a word like “tell” deciding what to do with the kids' stuff once they've moved out celebrating a first grandchild with some clever exuberance or delving into memories of secretly listening for late-night baseball scores on a “hidden” radio.</strong></p><p> </p><p><strong>Sometimes lyrically wistful occasionally surrealistic always thoughtful Bohen's poems probe and preach smile and reflect snap and snarl. And wherever the poems travel — to challenging down-to-earth dark funny and more — they bring back insights and give readers a chance to luxuriate in the poet's lifelong love of words his meant-to-be-read-aloud rhythms and his unique use of rhyme. And everything found in a surprising variety of very satisfying poems.</strong></p><p> </p>