Stray Cat Blues

Poetry. If one reads enough Hal Sirowitz poems the whole world seems to become material for poetry. That is part of the gift of his work.... Sirowitzs poetry is a celebration of ordinary life and in its own way may signal the most radical democratization of poetry since the work of Whitman first appeared.... If much of contemporary poetry appears to celebrate an inflation of the self Hal Sirowitzs poems are refreshing because they are so accepting of real-life moments of deflation.... These newest poems have a fresh delicacy and subtlety; in some ways they remind one of the later paintings of Cezanne where his still-life fruits become almost transparent.&;Liz Rosenberg