Dead Photographs

"John Dorsey's book is a tribute to small town life. He carefully dissects the lives of his characters to find the crossroads where dreams were thwarted, and how the survivors of these lost dreams manage to carry on anyway, sometimes as though they don't even know how close they came to escaping the bear trap of smoky bars and bar fights and the endless cycle of pregnancy and childrearing. Each inhabitant of these poems is treated with delicate dignity, leaving you with the feeling that you've met each and every one of these characters at some point in your own life, or may have even been in one of two of these poems yourself."

-Holly Day, author of Into the Cracks

"John Dorsey is one of my favorite living

poets - clear minute particulars and broken-hearted honesty. Generous empathetic outlook for our hardened times."

-Marc Olmsted, author of Don't Hesitate: Knowing Allen Ginsberg