The latest chapbook of Nathaniel S. Rounds demands time, but to reap the rewards of his art on both a grand and miniscule scale...ah, well that is pleasure. -Christine Jessica Margaret ReillyThe latest chapbook of Nathaniel S. Rounds demands time, but to reap the rewards of his art on both a grand and miniscule scale...ah, well that is pleasure. His work succeeds not just on different levels, but in different layers all pulsing through the other. He travels from the oddly specific to the universal, the mundane to the spiritual, with such force I feel like I, as the reader, am being shot out of a gun. This is not to say that I feel as though I'm being hand-held or like there is no control in his work. He retains an excellent flair for sound and imagery with lines like "I tapped into a lonely wallflower/All pretty and educated in things clerical." His voice is so clearly present in all of the poems, whispering in my ear, letting me peer into the minutiae of his world with just a non-judgmental monocle and my senses: "Wow/Thierry Schevchenko/I mean there are few names like it/Inscribed upon American Tourister Tiara luggage sets from 1968. /And the man is still around somewhere/Minus his luggage/Maybe he still has some lady weave his back hair/Into an exotic cape." The majority of the book maintains its clean and hilarious nature with simple but brilliant language. Lines like "The blender spoke in a disdainful teen girl voice/That English-speaking undergrads use/The one who spits out a sentence" are rollicking, but have heart. -Christine Jessica Margaret Reilly

“Bread of Tears” is at once engaging and unsettling. It’s not a “one read and done” collection. On my first pass through Nathaniel S. Rounds’ work, I found myself wondering just what had happened to Rounds to make him create such disjointed, almost crestfallen characters and imagery.--Patrick StevensMy first clue into Rounds’ motivations came with some research into the title. The phrase “bread of tears” is taken from Psalm 80. The verses around it say the following:How long, Lord God Almighty, will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people? You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have made them drink tears by the bowlful. You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors, and our enemies mock us. It was then that I began to understand the subjects of Rounds’ poetry. They are not the subjects of love, objects of affection, or esteemed champions of victory that are the subjects of so many poems before. They are not even the hard-working, salt of the earth people whose praises are sung throughout the verses of Whitman and others like him. In a way, they are not subjects of anything. They are people so defeated by life that they are never mentioned at all.--Patrick Stevens

Nathaniel S. Rounds’ newest chapbook by Fowlpox Press, And Your Dreams Will Be Made into Songs that Sell Burgers and Cars, starts full of the pleasure of watching a story, and its strife, unfold pell-mell (as if in a lunatic sidecar)as it draws you into the emotional complexity of the poet’s seemingly simple experimental style.--N. A’Yara SteinNathaniel S. Rounds’ newest chapbook by Fowlpox Press, And Your Dreams Will Be Made into Songs that Sell Burgers and Cars, starts full of the pleasure of watching a story, and its strife, unfold pell-mell (as if in a lunatic sidecar)as it draws you into the emotional complexity of the poet’s seemingly simple experimental style.Splicing together sometimes seemingly disconnected people, fractured, Rounds gets everything all mixed up: the poems and their characters are inhabited by a disturbing and representative feature of a world in cages, a world where even a microtone of sorrow or regret are absent and where there is little to no hint of refuge from the quotidian evils of desire inflicted upon us. Rounds piques my curiosity from the start with “Chicken Nugget Cup Cake” and “the morphine working its magic on her broken back”. By the time I get to the lines “Chivalry isn’t dead/It’s just in remission…It’s just a coat we sometimes shed /To avoid the heat,” I believe in the ethos Rounds has created.I praise Rounds for eschewing convention and for sucking up his “unaccounted sorrow” and having the will to run his own race, giving us all a good run for our money.--N. A’Yara Stein is a nominee for the 2011 Pushcart Prize, was a finalist in the 2011 National Poetry Series, and was nominated twice for the 2010 Pushcart Prize; she holds an MFA from the University of Arkansas and is a grant recipient of the Michigan Art Council and the Arkansas Arts Council, among other honors. The former editor of the arts quarterly Gypsy Blood Review, she’s recently published in Verse Wisconsin, The Mayo Review, Ping Pong: The Journal of the Henry Miller Library, The San Pedro Poetry Review, The Delinquent (UK), among others. She teaches at Purdue North Central and lives near Chicago with her sons.

The title reveals a tight association with painting, and one must refer to Rothko to see what is truly going on. Reading the chapbook proves helpful as well.John Marchant and Pavel Tomeckova, first introduced in contemporary thriller Viennese Waltz, take centre stage to tell stories of their own.In Scorpion Dance John describes little job in which, for once, he upstages his flamboyant partner, whilst in Hook in the Heart Pavel has another opportunity to explain, as he once explained to Kathryn Blake, how a certain raw recruit first came to the attention of his arm of the service.

From the pen of KJ Hannah Greenberg comes this chapbook of new poetry. Fun, insightful, and lyrical, Fluid and Crystallized focuses primarily on challenging and, only secondarily, on pleasing. This chapbook uses words’ color and texture to provoke interpersonal mindfulness. “Risk,” not “peace,” makes these pages heuristically valuable.From the pen of KJ Hannah Greenberg comes this chapbook of new poetry. Fun, insightful, and lyrical, Fluid and Crystallized focuses primarily on challenging and, only secondarily, on pleasing. This chapbook uses words’ color and texture to provoke interpersonal mindfulness. “Risk,” not “peace,” makes these pages heuristically valuable.What’s more, Fluid and Crystallized, tries to cheer on, to shepherd, and to whisper softly not only about success, but also about failure. This collection shares cautions as well as an appreciation of the scenery.About the Author:KJ Hannah Greenberg, who only pretends at being indomitable, tramps across literary genres and giggles in her sleep. She worries less, however, about linguistic beasts that roam at dusk than about bold fiends that smile and gulp up writers during broad daylight.In the beginning there were Watercolors, 1979, a musical, and Conversations on Communication Ethics, 1991, essays. Following a tour of duty in academia and then decades dedicated to parenting, there are: Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting, French Creek Press, 2010, essays, A Bank Robber’s Bad Luck with His Ex-Girlfriend, Unbound CONTENT, 2011, poetry, and Don’t Pet the Sweaty Things, Bards & Sages Publishing, 2012, short fictions. In the future, there will be, b’eH: Supernal Factors, 2012, poetry, The Nexus of the Sun, Moon and Mother, 2013, essays, and Oh Your Goodness!, 2013, essays.https://kjhannahgreenberg.net/"Such a galloping, rollicking poet she is. She rolls words from denotation to connotationright through to playful upsetting of conventional usage carts."--Deirdre Kessler, poet and award-winning author of the Brupp series.

Film noir finds a new home in the well-chosen words of Howie Good. Contemporary living and loathing are given new life through this treatment.Josh Greenwood and his Mom and Dad are walking their neighbors to the corner of 13th and Jefferson after Josh’s 14th birthday party when a careening motorcycle kicks up a rock that kills Bonnie, the mother. But what if the rock killed Tom, the father, instead? Or the accident unfolded differently and Josh was killed? This uplifting tale of middle class family life in America offers all three stories. In Book 1, Tom struggles to cope with single parenthood and tries to woo Elaine, the neighbor at the accident who has a past with a mystery man. Josh and Max, Elaine’s son who doesn’t know that his real father is “somebody”, interfere and grow up until graduation from high school. In Book 2, Bonnie struggles to save Josh from the influences of her petty criminal half-brother, Mitch. Max reacts very differently to learning the identity of his real father and even with the best intentions and efforts of loving mothers things do not turn out well. In Book 3, Tom and Bonnie’s marriage flounders as they struggle to reinvent themselves as non-parents, Max becomes a real player in his father’s presidential campaign and Elaine… Well we can’t tell you the rest. In Book 4, (surprise!) the original tragedy is averted. How much do we really know about anyone?

New poems from Nathaniel S. Rounds, written while hugging the skirting of Fenwick Tower in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 26th floor, on a cold night in December.Kennedy Riser never thought that she'd want to go back to her boring life in the suburbs of Villa Chica. But, after all was said and done, she found herself wishing that she could return to her former Freak Girl status and continue to lead her once inconsequential life away from demons and shadows and overgrown insects from hell. But, fate had other plans for her and now she had to hide, to run away from everything that she knew and thought she hated. The one good thing that came out of it, a fire that burned at the pit of her stomach ignited by electric blue eyes and a crooked smile.Shadow Riser is the first book in Deborah Barreto's Shadow series.

We are reminded of the philosophers'questioning if life is actually a dream or as Edgar Allen Poe has sobeautifully written "a dream within a dream".My suggestion is that you walk and laugh with author down his bizarrepath and see the world in all its strangeness.Reviewed by Joan McNerneySurrealist Chapbook “Reproachable Optimists” from Nathaniel S. RoundsFrom the French, surrealism means beyond realism. Surrealism stemsfrom the 20th-century literary and artistic movement attempting toexpress the workings of the subconscious. It is characterized byfantastic imagery and strange juxtaposition of subject matter. Freefrom the conscious control of reason and convention, surrealism isdedicated to expressing the imagination as revealed in dreams. Ourperception of reality is colored by the subconscious and surrealistsseek to exploit this.In his collection entitled Reproachable Optimists, the authorNathaniel S. Rounds presents the absurd by plunging deeply into aworld of mismatched thinking and incongruous ideas. This weird worldis familiar. We have only to listen to a single evening newscast toknow the unreality of reality.In the poem Peace Work, he shows the futility of many occupations. Inour time, tasks have been cut up into units for efficiency hence theterm "piece work" has evolved. Then we have the silly notion thatgreen bananas will improve digestion in old people. Even the smellwill enhance bowel movements. How many times have we heard expertsproclaim special foods are good or bad for us? Or, perhaps we shouldembrace certain miracle treatments? Several months later, we find allthis advice contradicted. Black skinned bananas are for those inmourning. This shows the employer cares. Our banks want to "serve" us,hospitals have the "compassion to cure", insurance companies are "onour side". Sound familiar?The last poem Somnambulist presents us with a sleep walk. Indeed muchof the collection has a unreal dream-like quality to it. It is a roadonly seen by the dreamer. Without prelude or warning, flowers beds aretransformed into light bulbs. We are reminded of the philosophers'questioning if life is actually a dream or as Edgar Allen Poe has sobeautifully written "a dream within a dream".My suggestion is that you walk and laugh with author down his bizarrepath and see the world in all its strangeness.Reviewed by Joan McNerneyJoan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literarymagazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline,63 channels, Spectrum, and three Bright Spring Press Anthologies. Herlatest title is Having Lunch with the Sky, A.P.D., Albany, New York.--

Someone, like Nathaniel S. Rounds, who shows you without sentimentality, without melodrama and without judgment what you already know but have not taken the time to examine fully… well, now…. that is a poet. --Alice Shapiro, Poet Laureate of Douglasville, GeorgiaNathaniel S. Round’s newest chapbook, “Clefts of the Rock“, morphs back and forth from the banal to the sordid in such a liquid manner as to celebrate both Jerry Mathers suburban ordinariness and Bukowski’s silken, boozy vision. A stanza from “In Rain on Rain” demonstrates this: It’s all very depressingYou grab a Valium and a glass of wineAnd advance to the endE-man is standing over a dead PennyWho died in that scene you hateWhere she polishes off that out-of-date cheese dip Mr. Round’s story/statements are secret languages (You are a Holy See sea sick host) that in their brevity expand into volumes of thought and history. Although Round’s free verse poems do not flaunt internal rhyme, there is a perfect rhythm to them that poeticizes a commonplace sentence. If I have to criticize anything in this collection it would be his poem, Arise, because of the end rhymes. However, he still manages to stay away from that sing-song quality I find distracting, so it may be less of a criticism than a personal preference. Mr. Rounds also gives us a sophisticated, dry humor in several of the poems, most noted in his “Judas with Honours” which caught me laughing loudly out loud. Nathaniel S. Round’s dualities and juxtapositions are brilliant. The last line of his final poem simply resonates with imaginative possibility: One eye envying the dead. It is a joy to read poems that are not contrived, not regurgitated, derivative attempts at wordsmithing, but poems that make you feel as well as think. Someone, like Nathaniel S. Rounds, who shows you without sentimentality, without melodrama and without judgment what you already know but have not taken the time to examine fully… well, now…. that is a poet. --Alice Shapiro, Poet Laureate of Douglasville, Georgia

A chapbook from Nathaniel S. Rounds."If the world were a forgotten lunatic asylum, with electro-shock rooms that doubled as greasy diners, on the edge of the universe without much hope except for the ringmaster of the last circus… then Nathaniel S. Rounds would be the historian… this man may even be the ringmaster."--Phillip Vermaas, Misfits’ MiscellanyThis is my story. I'm not Merlin. But it seems that something is. Am I insane? Did it really show me a great 'Science' that would save the world? Or was it all a mad chase that would serve only to destroy my life? But I did see so many things. Everything I saw. Goddesses. Holy Grails. A giant sword of power rising from a huge stone. An incredible Being of Light. I was told to go to all of the great places. So I went where I was told... By something I could see only in dreams... And waking visions... Or that I could talk to by using a bent piece of copper rod only. Am I crazy? Have I gone insane? But when I went where I was told amazing things did happen. Even earthquakes happened sometimes. And now? Now the great revolutions are happening. Exactly like I was told they would. And all because of this 'Science' that something that is Merlin showed me. Hear my story.

Nathaniel S. Rounds sits behind the steering wheel of life and weaves a tale of service jobs and common folk... It’s a High Voltage Adventure examines the day to day, diving in for a bird’s eye view and pulling away for the Big Picture. Phyllis Johnson, author of Being Frank with Anne (poetry about Anne Frank)Review of It’s a High Voltage Adventure Nathaniel S. Rounds sits behind the steering wheel of life and weaves a tale of service jobs and common folk. He writes of the fatherhood of pig adoption, whether it be by bequeathing or building a cellar accidentally accessible to creatures. In a Maddening Large Arsonist, thievery reigns and the poem Fake References reveals to us the need to background check even a dog sitter. The poem, Pull, is part reflection, part fear and part anticipation. He deeply ponders artwork, calling a landscape painting an entombed land. Pirate Talk is a bit of primate whimsy. The chapbook concludes with You There, a sobering commentary on the shortness of life and the lack of respect for those older than us. It’s a High Voltage Adventure examines the day to day, diving in for a bird’s eye view and pulling away for the Big Picture. Phyllis Johnson, author of Being Frank with Anne (poetry about Anne Frank)