[Quincy Lehr]

Come out to help celebrate two new books of poetry from Measure Press, Ernest Hilbert's Caligulan and Quincy Lehr's Dark Lord of the Tiki Bar:

Philadelphia Launch, September 23, 7 PM

Featuring music by The Keystone Swingbillies

Hosted by E-Verse Poetry Editor Luke Stromberg

Upstairs at the legendary Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street
Philadelphia PA 19102
215-928-8118

New York Book Launch, September 26, 5 PM

Bauman Rare Books Gallery
535 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10022
(212) 751-0011

Hosted by Rowan Ricardo Philips

Both events are FREE!

Hardcover copies of both books available for $20 at the readings. Lots of free stuff, like magnets and stickers. T-shirts for sale too! Come on out for a beer. Say hi. Grab a book. Support the Dark Lords!

Please share these events with your friends!

* * *

"The work of art that moves through summer to spring is the work of an optimist. So don’t let the title fool you. As the star under which the poems in this collection move, the title Caligulan is brutal and yet beautiful, highly refined and yet enticingly diurnal. Moved by beauty, attuned to the sublimity of natural things, livened by paradox, coaxed into song by pentameter, Ernest Hilbert’s rich new book covers more emotional ground than a reader has any right to expect of a poet writing in this muted and mumbling world we have made for ourselves. “Caligulan” poems like “Squirrel Hill” are hard to come by. And when you come to them you feel grateful for such a luscious reminder of how poetry can honor the life lived, the live taken from us, and the life still to be lived. Indeed, Caligulan is a timely reminder that the only tyrant that can take poetry away from us is us. – Rowan Ricardo Phillips, author of Heaven

Ernest Hilbert’s third collection of poems, Caligulan, is at once terrifying and touching, a book haunted by the poet’s many affections and angers, its poems animated by horror films, military history, science fiction novels, heavy metal and opera, crime and religion, economic injustice and the natural world. Departing from the experimental sonnet forms he pioneered in his earlier books, Hilbert delivers a chorus of poems that are conversational yet bizarre, stormy and surreal yet dexterously accomplished; brash, abrupt, and sometimes scathingly sarcastic. In four chapters of fourteen poems each, Hilbert leads the reader through modern America’s triumphs and tragedies, elusive consolations and primeval horrors, all the while telling jokes, posing questions, and sounding warnings of things to come.

* * *

"Quincy R. Lehr is a poetry Jacobin and a writer of the front line. His new collection serves as both a contemporary master class in rhyme and meter and a continuously provocative reflection on the tattered yet still battling condition of the human will-to-utopia in the early years of the 21st century. I read it in one sitting, energized and inspired by his unflinching witness of the darkness of our time and, most of all, by his refusal, at any point, to cave into nihilism—that safe and easy option taken by so many Western intellectuals. This is one for the hopeful who still have their eyes and their minds wide open and are waiting for the call." - Dave Lordan

The Dark Lord of the Tiki Bar is Quincy R. Lehr's ferocious new collection, his first book since 2014's Heimat. "Frequently laugh-out-loud funny but always dead serious, these poems are topical, allusive, angry, and often satirical, but with a vulnerable emotional core. Lehr's verse avoids easy sloganeering, but one can shake one's fist to its indignant cadences. Political without didacticism, emotional without sentimentality, and formal without a whiff of archaism, The Dark Lord of the Tiki Bar evokes a place where Biblical figures rub shoulders with Aleister Crowley, where kitsch insinuates itself into the Classics, and where the bar is open a bit later than is strictly advisable."

[Jayne Osborn]

Would that I could make the trip!

But I have just bought your book, Quincy

Have a great time at both venues.

Jayne

[John Whitworth]

Here's to you and your books, Quincy. The only quibble I have is I can't get the one I have to sit on my shelves. It is too tall.

[Bill Carpenter]

Great reviews! Good luck with the launch!

[Quincy Lehr]

Thanks, y'all!

At this point, between Facebook, this place, and two emails (one where I forgot to include the date and time and a follow-up where I remembered), the potentially interested in the New York area are hopefully informed.

Per Jayne, my book is available from Measure Press HERE, as well as the usual suspects like Amazon and online Barnes and Noble and such, and Ernie's should be very soon.

[Quincy Lehr]

Just to note, Ernie's book is now available for pre-order, and we're both really psyched about the launches.

[Jayne Osborn]

Per Jayne, my book is available from Measure Press HERE, as well as the usual suspects like Amazon and online Barnes and Noble and such, and Ernie's should be very soon.

Quincy,
In post #2 I did say that I'd already bought your book...

...and it arrived today!!!

Only had time to dip my toe in, so far, but I'm looking forward to immersing myself in it.

Jayne

[Quincy Lehr]

Got the message, Jayne, and I hope you enjoy the book.

A reminder--the Philly launch is tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept. 23, and the New York launch is Saturday, Sept. 26.

There will be revelry. And regulation.

[Rob Wright]

I, on the other hand, am happy to say I will be there at the wonderfully grungy Fergie's. And am looking forward to seeing two talented and erudite readers.

I only hope I can get home afterwards. I live in the Green Security Zone for the Papal Visit and may have to pass though a check point. It's like traveling to East Berlin in the old days — well, actually it isn't, but we Philadelphians are accomplished and perennial complainers.