Life in the Past Lane
Description
In his impressive third volume, Peter Carlaftes digs into the beauty--and lunacy--of contemporary culture and its tendency to masque and disrupt the sustainability not just of the planet, but human nature itself.
The poems in Life in the Past Lane are both daring and discreet, ranging from full frontal assaults on political and religious cults to tender, discerning, intimate studies of the challenges of self-faith, relationships and maintaining quiet equilibrium in the noisy space of modern life.
Risk-taking and endlessly innovative, Carlaftes offers poems that dare to ask questions to which there is no answer, and to answer the unasked. It looks at the past clear-eyed, without reverence, and studies the place in the road where we are now, weaving cultural and personal memory with the currency that too-often ignores how we arrived. This extraordinary collection, relentlessly accessible, surprises with the depth of poems and the clarity of the thoughts, concepts and excution that forged them.
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About the Author
Peter Carlaftes is author of five books including the poetry collections Drunkyard Dog and I Fold With the Hand I Was Dealt and two collections of plays: Teatrophy and Triumph for Rent. He is co-editor of the annual contemporary dada journal, Maintenant and editor of The Faking Of The President: Nineteen Stories of White House Noir. His poetry has appeared in NYC from the Inside, Love Love Magazine, Chorus: A Literary Mixtape and many more. He is co-director of Three Rooms Press.
Reviews
High Praise for Peter Carlaftes
"I love Peter Carlaftes' Life in the Past Lane, a stunning work of memoir rendered in totally original poetry. You won't find any of the artifices of academic verse here. This is real. These are to-the-bone poems. I'll be rereading Life in the Past Lane for years to come." W.K. Stratton, author, Dreaming Sam Peckinpah Quintet and Los Angeles Times bestseller The Wild Bunch
"Life in the Past Lane by Peter Carlaftes is an open heart bursting with humor, candor, a wink and a smile and a good stiff shot of scotch from the razor's edge and back again. A Runyonesque It's a Wonderful Life cab ride on the wild side from coast to coast." --S.A. Griffin, author Pandemic Soul Music
"From the highs of joy and love to the lows of heartbreak and contemplation, these poems capture the essence of a life fully lived. Life in the Past Lane is a poetic odyssey that embraces the beauty in vulnerability and offers a profound connection to the shared experience of being human." --Richard Modiano, Director Emeritus Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, Winner of the 2022 Joe Hill Prize for Labor Poetry
"Peter Carlaftes' poems are stories that bring you into his life from his beginning thru his childhood, fun and entertaining, faster than on the road of prosaic tail lights. A shift into high." --Charles Plymell, poet
"Peter Carlaftes' poetry reports with a quirky innocence that belies its sophisticated awareness. He knows what he's doing while making it seem effortless." --Marc Olmsted, poet
"Carlaftes is always seeking the truth and how to make dreams come true. And while he learns very early on that life pours its drinks strong, he also understands there are days when a birdsong can save our lives." --Rich Ferguson, poet
Past Praise for Peter Carlaftes
"Audacious." The New York Times
"If Dr. Moreau fused the ungovernable souls of Beckett and Genet, he'd have created Peter Carlaftes." --Michael Puzzo, Playwright, Dirty Talk, Lyric is Waiting
"Spiked with dark humor, wise-cracks and moments of deep caring it's hard not to appreciate." --Richard Vetere, author, The Writers Afterlife
"Challenging and cerebral work . . . A great addition to any collection." --John Clancy, playwright, League of Independent Theater
"Cries out Ultramodern--and that it delivers with unflinching scrutiny. . ." --San Francisco Bay Guardian
"As with Strindberg, Beckett, or even Sartre--Carlaftes' message seems to be something we intuit . . . like music." --SF Weekly
