I Can Sing Fire

Oh, for the democratization of poetry! For the populace, for the youth, for the wild boys and girls of every generation! Let us celebrate direct emotion, purity of expression, raw feeling represented with the rawest of words. Let us celebrate New York, with its Beat Generations, its midnight cafés, its solid and sordid history of every type and era of class revolution. And let us not forget the individual artists and activists who spend their lives keeping New York's perpetual revolutions alive. Anne Lombardo Ardolino, known on the Internet (where she manages EastVillagePoetry.com) as Anntelope, embodies this spirit: in her presence, in her life, in her songs and art, and particularly in her poetry. In I Can Sing Fire, her first book, we see what she s been working on for decades: an aesthetic that is base but never banal, crude and sophisticated, and counterculture in a way that embraces the poetic tradition. In short, she's brought us a book which is pure rock 'n' roll. You'll find I Can Sing Fire is an easy read: it slams through you like a concert, leaving you pumped for more art, unable to distinguish words from action. You'll find that you keep returning to it. Despite its immediate clarity, it can't be called simple: there's enough here to pull you back many times over.