I Hear It the Way I Want It to Be

Kozinski I Hear It the Way I Want It to Be is a Coney Island carnival ride of metaphor, innuendo, and allegory in which the author leads us through layer after layer of emotion, memory, and perceptions always so intense and personal one can only step back and marvel. Each poem uploads more to one’s sensory storage capacity, often forcing readers to feel more than their comfort level will allow. The effect is often simultaneously transgressive and transcendent. This book is an organic, evolving volume of music, art, and language which will engage and perturb. Rest assured, there is nothing minimalist about this book. It is so much larger than its mere 80 odd pages.
– Jamie Brown, The Broadkill River Press

David Kozinski takes us on a journey from “the blue heat of adolescence” to a place where “there is just a sputter / of time to profitably / retrace my trespasses.” Kozinski has an artist’s eye for detail: “a leaf caught in an eddy” and “the maze master mouse nibbling at the edge of sleep.” He resurrects the readers' memories of growing up, as he tells his own: “My best stories follow the white pebbles / past snails that dream of the Duchy of Escargots.” Kozinski creates verbal art as striking as Dali’s memorable melting clocks: “time liquefies, stretches like light.” These poems turn observations into epiphanies, leaving the reader with a renewed sense of awareness, beauty, and gratitude. These are necessary poems.
– Eileen M. D’Angelo, Founder & Managing Editor, Mad Poets Review

David Kozinski is a word magician. You must be daring to enter the many mysterious houses he builds, to visit the many lands he travels. You enter the poet’s wild life growing up and meet his friends—just short of a Lost Weekend. What strikes me most is the original and startling imagery: “Comprehension is capricious as a count in a comic opera,” “Rickety spinet with a few keys like nail-less fingers,” “Chimneys spelling out smutty jokes,” “I’ve thumbed my nose sore at good advice,” etc. Often the image makes a penetrating philosophical insight. A poem seems serious then you catch yourself chortling. A reader must pause and reread; a simple sandwich or pillow can suggest so much more.
– Ray Greenblatt, Author of Until the First Light