John Vick

In CHAPERONS OF A LOST POET, John Vick has created an extraordinary long poem, and become part of a great tradition of American writers who have chosen to examine heritage, gender, hunger, desire, intense self-doubt, and history. Early in the poem, Vick sets these words into a list: "get into the deep blue valley void of nothing matters..." As readers, we feel the pull towards that void, as the narrator struggles to discern and honor self and his own choices against the majority culture. But this poet does not get lost, and never gives into the "void of nothing matters". This long poem is evidence of that. With remarkable syntactical strategies that never feel forced, Vick makes a whole world visible, he makes a whole world matter to his readers. There's great sorrow in these pages, hard-won wisdom, laughter, too, and a remarkable self-portrait emerges.

-Deborah Keenan, author of Willow Room, Green Door: New and Selected.

This book by John Vick is fearless.

-Valerie Fox, author of The Rorschach Factory, and Bundles of Letters, Including A., V., and Epsilon, with Arlene Ang.