Ridiculous Positions

Chris O'Carroll's newest collection of poems adroitly leads us to laugh at poisonous mushrooms, cancer treatments, umlauts, Paradise Lost, and even the "mad clown" in the Oval Office. Yet O'Carroll's neatly rhymed and metered couplets, quatrains, sonnets, clerihews, and double dactyls never dodge the hard truths-as when Dylan Thomas' liver ponders the "what-ifs" of a life that's "mostly a blur," and when a half-playful battle metaphor for cancer t reatment ends with the poignant plea from the speaker to his body, "please, be my friend again." In splendid illustrations of the rule that brevity is the soul of wit, O'Carroll captures the essence of Bob Newhart in two lines, and traces the history of birds in poetry in eight. The reader hears a remarkable variety of voices in this collection, including the self-deprecating bewilderment of a man acknowledging more than two genders, the smirking amusement of a Gilbert & Sullivan fan, and throughout, the clever candor of a poet who is never "wholly silly" (though sex may be, according to the title poem). -Jean L. Kreiling, author Home and Away and Shared History

Praise for Chris O'Carroll's earlier books Chris O'Carroll has for years been making me augh until the tears run. -Rhina P. Espaillat
He's a light verser wielding lightning.-Tom Daley I

f Alexander Pope and Wendy Cope got married, and their child grew up in the Sixties, his name would be Chris O'Carroll. -Leslie Monsour