“Turns out that piano man Steve ‘Thousand Dollar’ Cleveland brings the same soul touch to words as he does to the keys. Take a walk with him through this good book. Chances are his poems will show you something you hadn’t noticed before: the tinkle of glassware in a diner, a songbird over your shoulder, and an ogre and a couple of vampires along the way. Here’s a poet at home in himself and the cosmos. No axe to grind: ‘the world’s not necessarily / out to get you,’ he offers, ‘the world / IS you.’ Believe it.”
—Doug Marx
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