Product Description
by Diane Kistner (Editor), Paul Hostovsky (Author)
Winner of the 2015 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize. Who are the bad guys, anyway? Which one is the good fight, anyway? In Paul Hostovsky's eighth book of poetry, The Bad Guys, there are poems about suicide bombers and high school bullies, capricious exes and ecstatic bums, fastidious drug-dealers and contemplative alcoholics, evil stenches and spiritual moms; poems about the Republicans, the mega-hospitals, the brusque and bearded anesthesiologists, and the lady who gave out pencils on Halloween. Plus a host of other unlikely, often likable, always loveable, candidates. These poems are by turns funny and poignant, formal and free verse-a villanelle here, a pantoum there, and lots of loosey-goosey sonnets peppered throughout. Of Hostovsky's poetry Thomas Lux has said: "Hostovsky's poems strike me as kinds of non-religious prayers-of joy, of grief, of praise, of pain...but mostly prayers as a form of gratitude, a kind of thank you, thank you, Life "
Author Biography
Paul Hostovsky is the author of seven previous books of poetry: Selected Poems (2014), Naming Names (2013), Hurt Into Beauty (2012), A Little in Love a Lot (2011), Dear Truth (2009), Bending the Notes (2008), and Sonnets from South Mountain (2001). His poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net awards, the Muriel Craft Bailey Award from The Comstock Review, and five poetry chapbook contests. He has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and he was a Featured Poet on The Georgia Poetry Circuit. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter and Braille instructor. He lives in Medfield, Massachusetts with his wife, Marlene, and two stepchildren, Josh and Amber.
