Mooncussers

<p class=ql-align-justify>From suburban streets to worldwide events Jurkovic fights back with humor ranging from dry to hilarious. Everything is political and Jukovic doesn't care what you think. He'll keep writing dis-turbing notes and speak his mind. His new collection mooncussers provides entertaining lessons for us to emerge from the matrix that keeps our minds imprisoned. </p><p></p><p>- Patricia Carragon- Curator/Editor in-chief Brownstone Poets Brooklyn NY author of <em>Angel</em></p><p><em> Fire</em> (Alien Buddha Press).</p><p><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>mooncussers finds Jurkovic up on stage soloing all around and about the catastrophe making big-hearted clever</p><p class=ql-align-justify>nudges to build another little machine of words each offering the solace of company if not the surcease of sorrow. </p><p><br></p><p>-William Seaton poet translator critic and former member of San Francisco's Cloud House group </p><p><br></p><p>Muscular mordantly funny phrases that stick in the imagination like burs.</p><p>  </p><p>- Nina Shengold <em>Chronogram</em></p><p><br></p><p>An old school let 'er rip free spirit whose brisk voice does the poet's job: shaking up the reader's gray matter </p><p><br></p><p>  - Phil Wagner <em>Iconoclast</em></p><p><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>He's the mad house jester whose jabs jolt and sting. As one of his poems puts it gravity gets us all which is as serious as it gets. Enjoy this work it is original and a pleasure to read.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p>-Guy Reed poet <em>The Effort to Hold Light  Second Innocence</em></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In these poems Jurkovic plays his signature dark jazz of anxiety irony empathy. But his ear is tuned as well to rich tones of contemplation that stop us in our tracks: the air hushed flawless; the river a hug of diamonds. He plays the whole keyboard with love and skill.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p>- Irene O'Garden Poet (<em>Fulcrum: Selected Poems</em>) Author (<em>Glad To Be Human</em>) Off- Broadway</p><p>         playwright (<em>Women On Fire</em>)</p><p><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In <em>mooncussers</em> Jurkovic takes his readers on a journey that like the jazz he loves so well combines music words and rhythm. He invites us to enjoy the world he so eagerly inhabits a world that we know begins with easy conversations but deceives twisting and hitting out: It's like all the flagmen / came out of hiding / . . . So imagine this mob at rush hour / closing in for the kill. And yet the poet sees beauty down every street: The air hushed flawless. / The river a hug of diamonds. </p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p>-Bertha Rogers poet <em>What Want Brings: New & Selected Poems</em>; founder Bright Hill Press</p><p> & Literary Center Treadwell NY</p><p><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Funny outrageous courageous Mike Jurkovic's poems take risks as if every choice the poet makes were a left turn at a busy intersection at rush hour. Innovative arresting his poems provoke and tease. </p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p>-Dr. Lucia Cherciu 2021 Dutchess County Poet  Laureate Professor Department of English  SUNY / Dutchess</p><p><br></p><p>A poet of intense precision a collection of little daggers that head straight to the heart of things.</p><p><br></p><p>-John Pielmeier- Playwright (<em>Agnes of God</em>)  Screenwriter Novelist (<em>Hook's Tale</em>)</p>