Doing Cartwheels on Doomsday Afternoon

Poetry. Todd Moore, in his review of DOING CARTWHEELS ON DOOMSDAY AFTERNOON, writes that "Yamrus's doomsday isn't the big one with all the fires and the quakes and the tsunamis and the wind. Instead, his doomsday is all about the little apocalypses of life. The day to day failures that mark us as mortal." Rob Plath, in the introduction to DOOMSDAY, writes that "one recurrent subject in John's poems, subtle or obvious, is endurance." Both Moore and Plath hit the nail squarely upon its head. DOOMSDAY is as much about the day to day turmoil that breaks us down, as it is about the human spirit to endure. The pairing of "cartwheels" with "doomsday" is pure Yamrus gold, a testament to the abundance of laughter in which John approaches his own "little apocalypses of life."