Rattle & Numb: Selected & New Poems, 1992-2019 (OUT NOW!)

Cover painting by Emma Anderson

I am beyond excited to see that my new book—Rattle & Numb: Selected and New Poems, 1992-2019—is now available. This is by far my biggest book yet, and my first hardcover. It features all my best poems from the past three decades, including a healthy helping of new, previously unpublished work. I absolutely love the cover art by Cleveland's own Emma Anderson. I am so grateful to her and to Venetian Spider Press editor William F. DeVault. I feel incredibly honored to join the VSP family.

Rattle & Numb: Selected and New Poems, 1992-2019 is now available from many of your favorite independent bookstores, as well as from Barnes and Noble and other online outlets.

You may also procure a signed copy of Rattle & Numb directly from me on my book tour, which so far features appearances in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Michigan, Missouri, and a bunch of venues across Ohio.

I'm always interested in adding more events. So if you're interested in having me read/talk/hang out at your university, bookstore, library, festival or literary happening, please contact me at jc@crisischronicles.com.

Read a review by Pamela R. Anderson-Bartholet in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, by Heidi Blakeslee at GAS: Poetry, Art & Music, and by many others at Goodreads.

Artist Emma Anderson and me
[photo by Marty Snyder]

"In Rattle and Numb...John Burroughs has chosen some very strong pieces that propel the reader through a life-arc, while artfully revealing the person behind the poetry. His trademark wordplay is evident throughout, as in Ataraxis be bloom/be lilt/be boom/be wilt and Out (Not Fade Away) But in spite of it I wrote on/rode on/right on/wry dawn/rite yawn. Classic Burroughs poems—John Cage Uncaged and Engaged, Low Kay Shun, Lens—anchor the narrative, while new and newer poems create fresh mythologies, tackle the facelessness of Facebook, brood over the flow of rivers into Lake Erie, promise flaming postcards/from the conflagration. Rattle and Numb is both, and neither; it is a confessional collection that promises and delivers to whomever it may concern."

—Dianne Borsenik, author of Raga for What Comes Next, publisher at NightBallet Press