I wouldn’t write at all if it weren’t
for myriad writers before me whose works showed me what was possible. The poems
of this series are small offerings of respect, of thanks, to those muses. –
Brian Beatty
Jim Carroll
Flattened
basketballs
always reminded me
of Halloween pumpkins
smashed in the street.
Gangs of so-called
toughs
hide in the neighborhood
shadows,
collective breath held
in prayer.
Mothers at home have
no idea
where their little
boys have gone.
Vultures and priests
claim the dead.
– Brian Beatty
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Brian's recent collections of poetry are Dust and Stars: Miniatures and Brazil, Indiana.
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When I was a young writer just starting to look for books to read beyond what was on some class syllabus, I found Carroll's Living at the Movies and Book of Nods in a used bookstore. Soon he was my favorite living, if not prolific, writer.
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