Why Ice Cream Trucks Play Christmas Songs

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Review Delightful, essential, full of renewed wisdom and old magic, of the natural elements that sustain body and spirit. Paul Jolly's poems are to be savored time and again, like the ice cream in trucks that play Christmas songs. Bravo! Encore! Lucha Corpi, author of Eulogy for a Brown Angel and Confessions of a Book BurnerPaul Jolly's consonance crackles but is seldom gnarled. His poems are funny but never cruel. Like Kay Ryan, he sees the universe in little things. Jolly's tenderness is understated, his language unrestrained. Flossie Lewis, Brief but Spectacular (PBS)To read these poems is to enter a richly imagined world; brightened by dry touches of humor, parody, and wit. The poems are very much of the present day, both in language and in outlook. Though deeply felt, they contain nothing sentimental, let alone anything maudlin. Marie Borroff, Sterling Professor of English, Emeritus, at Yale UniversityDrawing upon a metaphoric area that hops nimbly from nursery rhymes to the spiritual lives of goats, from family history to the history of the zero, these poems surprise and delight. Jolly's light touch and humorous outtakes remind us that language in poetry is an adult thinker's playground. Johnna Schmidt, Director of Jiménez-Porter Writers' House, at University of MarylandI spent a first afternoon of immersion in this wonderful collection of poems smiling with occasional outbursts of delighted laughter at the poet's flights of fancy: Humpty Dumpty paired with Icarus, a Grandmother whose saliva does futile battle with her grandson's cowlick, farmers who carbonate cows to get "bubble milk," a factotum who does the dirty work for God during the six days of creation. Throughout, zany humor and vigorous imagination construct send-ups that are not without compassion and insight. There is import here I cannot explain, but only nod, knowingly. Catharine Lucas, poet and professor of English, Emerita, at San Francisco State University Read more About the Author Paul Jolly grew up in Oakland, California. After three decades on the East Coast, he is returning to the Bay Area in 2019. His poems have appeared in the Columbia Journal, Straylight Literary Magazine, and Permafrost. He is a professional fundraiser for non profit organizations, a creativity coach, and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). This is his first book. Read more