Light Here, Light There

Poetry. "The poems in Alexander Long's LIGHT HERE, LIGHT THERE offer no bromides, no easy consolations. His new book is a product of 'the grieving mind in memory,' and Long seems to have forgotten nothing. The misery of a failed marriage, a friend's suicide, and the casual ruin of other wasted lives are cataloged with a ruthless precision. But 'every apocalypse is personal,' Long assures us, and because it is, we readers experience the same redemption that Long somehow manages to coax out of the relentless assault of the past. Alexander Long's poems are superbly lyrical, agile and flamboyant. His description of Jimi Hendrix in one of his poems is an apt description of Long as well: 'wicked and bright and on'"--Gary Young.