Night & Day

Laska Has Written Works Alternately Described As Bold And Memorableand With A Hair-Raising Comic Vitality. Given The Complexity Of His Occasionally Dark Unabashedly Political Philosophical And Underground Writings He [Can Be Described] As An Appalachian Fyodor Dostoyevsky. --Jeff Biggers Contributing Editor To The Bloomsbury Review. Eschewing Conventional Poetic Fashion Laskas Engaging Collection Of Over Three Decades Of Writings In The Shadow Of Corporate Domination Is A Sweeping Poetic And Prosaic Lyrical And Anti-Lyrical Assemblage Of Thought-Provoking Epigrams Puns And Philosophical Dialogues Together With Voices And Vignettes Of A By-Passed America. From The Stripped-Mined Hills And Hollows Of Appalachia To The Banal Debris Of Urban Streets His Work Unfolds With Respectful Understatement The On-Going Global Desecration Of Inner And Outer Life. With Patient Yet Alarmed Urgency He Brings To The Surface An Ecological Counter-Tradition Whose Contours Trace Back As Far As The Ancient Chinese Dao De Jing. -- Csaba Polony Editor Left Curve. Night & Day Is An Iconoclastic 35 Year Poetic Chronicle Of Americas Ocd. With A Smiling Grimace The Author Journeys To The Psychological Interior Of The Homeland Sees Through The Nations Repetition Compulsion And Self-Protective Historical Amnesia And Returns With Zen-Like Epigrams Satires Dialogues And A Set Of Healing Philosophical Maxims Of Access.. Book Review:The Past Finds Its Way Home September 23 2010 By Sacramento Book Review Sacramento Book Review (Sacramento Ca) . This Review Is From: Night & Day: A Collection Of Poems (Paperback) By P. J. Laska O The Fabulous Histories/Of Fleeting Things Remain/Each Once And Ever Instant/ Effervescent Like The Faces/Youll Remember Years Hence/When The Hills Are Mythic/Fictions Of The Night Sky--/A Moon Will Rise In Memory/Over Morgantown/ And Youll Be Thinking/What If What If What If... P.J. Laska `S Collection Of Poems Is A Tour De Force In The Examination Of A Disappearing Homeland The Governments Gross And Compulsive Negligence And The Way Back To A Place Of Home Through Philosophical Musings. Laska Has Portrayed A Fertile Landscape Of A Working-Class Citizenship; Coal Miners Janitors Salesmen Across The Rich Diversities Of The Appalachians. But It Could Be Anywhere Anywhere There Is History And The Undying Thirst To Regain Its Story. . //Night & Day// Is A Revolutionary Documentary Shaped By Laskas Skill And Free-Thinking Awareness. He Has Crafted This Collection Into Three Very Distinct And Thought-Provoking Sections Each Lending A Vivid Picture Created On A Palette Of Carefully Blended Anti-Lyrics. His Style Reaches From Haiku To Epigrammatic Dialogue To Philosophical Conversations To A One-Act Play. The Different Forms Make For A Seamless Flow And Keeps The Reader Engaged In An Almost Voyeuristic Indulgence. The Images Are Seen Felt And Experienced Quick-Dipping/Their Heads They/Roll Silvery Drops/Down Their Backs/Then Shimmy/The Dust/From Their Wings. His Eye For The Senses Is Clearly Evident A Profound Craftsmanship On Each Page. . The Main Theme Points To Loss And The Restitution Of A Culture A Reinstatement Of What Has Vanished What Has Been Taken Or Rather An Intense Look Back At A Sober Lingering. The Governments Involvement Is One Of Disdain But What Strikes Me Is The Search For Meaning Through Philosophical Traditions The Hope For A Return To Nature And What Is Whole From A Place Of Drought. In Many Ways These Poems Are Odes And Pieces Of The Subjects Soul. This Is A Call An Invitation To Query. I Accept.