LIGHT TURNOUT

<p class=ql-align-justify>Gary Percesepe's <em>LIGHT TURNOUT</em> is a romp through a world we mostly recognize made brilliant and startling through language well-chosen. From erasing the neighbors to visits by dead sisters and angels in the night the poems create a belief system we want to embrace and cause the reader to applaud a spirited writer reworking the universe for our delight. In these grim times <em>LIGHT TURNOUT </em>reminds us that the root word of amuse is muse-and here we have a perfect muse and host creating a presence we are glad to step into. Whatever happens today we are here-glad to participate in these giddy life-affirming acts of invention.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>-Maxine Chernoff</strong></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Each piece in Gary Percesepe's <em>Light Turnout</em> is its own world-some surreal some crass some beautiful. Despite the brevity of these pieces or perhaps<em> because </em>of it this collection is vast. Cable bridges sing in the wind like giant harps tangled trees look like seaweed in the twilight yet in others the characters are survivors of a dead mother and no-account father. This collection has scope. I loved each small world I inhabited while reading it.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>-Shaindel Beers</strong></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Gary Percesepe's latest collection of poetry brilliantly captures the existential mood of the times. Somewhere moonflowers shimmer in street dust a long-lost father works late at night alone in a parallel world and we may wake up one day and find ourselves covered in <em>covfefe</em> searching for the last fallen ice cube in the fridge.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>-Morgan Harlowe</strong></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Percesepe's voice is one of shrewdness marked by a rare combination of emotional astuteness and a penetrating depth of vision.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>-Nicolette Wong</strong></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>