About The Book:
Erric Emerson’s second book, Which Way Is Up?, is a quasi-narrative collection of uncanny poems dealing with mental illness, addiction, relationships, haunts, and anthropomorphic things. The writing veers from colloquialism to seeming errata without warning and hinges on fringe themes. Civil poems these are not. A merciless lens cast upon the shadows, the patterns one sees when staring off too long. Someone spinning you till your stomach sours and asks you to point to the North Star without consideration of the blindfold. |
Which Way Is Up?
Poems by Erric Emerson "The world of Erric Emerson's poems is haunted by the maelstrom of addiction, the unforgettably strange specters of old romances, and a life lifed on the edge. We are pulled into the struggle for meaning by this distinctive, mysterious voice; daring experiments with graphics and language; rueful, self-depreciating humor; and a merciless lens on the poet's own perceived failings. Enter these dark corridors at your own risk. There are rewards.
-Carole Bernstein, author of Buried Alive: A To-Do List Erric Emerson's poems show a verbose and playful fascination with language while exploring both the mundane and the absolute peaks of inner emotion. There are parts that are humorous and gentle even, before being swept to different worlds, skirting lines between realities. From the people you encounter to the anthropomorphized objects, this is a world that pulls you in creating vivid scenes and offering glimpses into the personal and universal while blurring the lines between the two.
-Jonathan Todd, author of Over/Time. 
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About The Book:
Counting Days is the collected musings of an unreliable speaker who tallies the passing days towards some unseen goal. Contained within these pages- bizarre, surreal, and bracing poems which examine addictive patterns, the monotony and quietness of aging, and the pseudo-growth in imagined epiphanies. The speaker, a reckless, opposing voice finds himself lost amidst a plethora of excitements and disturbances. Poems that are vital, at times tragic, and themed with a confessionalist vein that read briskly yet linger long after. |
"After each poem in Counting Days, I asked myself something I almost never ask when reading poetry, What happens next? Erric Emerson succeeds doing something poets rarely do, combining language that is raw and vivid with a storyline. He has the courage to tell the story in verse—with boiled-down language that has no trace of sentimentality, pity, or apology—letting the language and imagery speak for itself."
-Alan Toltiz, author of The Last Commandment "Counting Days by Erric Emerson is an immersive book of personal poetry, formatted to read in a chronological, storytelling order of days. Each heading is titled with a typed font and followed with scribbled and free-scratched numbers, and a rogue Giant Translucent Wolf Spider. The formatting of the book is almost as intense and provocative as the poems themselves...almost. The poetry dances between internal feelings and outward observations, fueled by strong drinks, nicotine, and all the seemingly banal lives of people (and sometimes animals) surrounding him. But they aren't banal at all. In fact, Emerson augments vapid encounters, magnifying them to a point where they are intensely felt. Emerson weaves a vision of life from the inside out in a wildly poetic and intelligent body of work.
Counting Days by Erric Emerson is truly a journey that I was enthralled by--even if it's difficult to say I was happy to experience it, given its serious undertones. It was the personal interactions, the human emotion that I most appreciated. This is enhanced by the arrangement, which is curative and artistic. This is certainly a book of poetry that will leave you thinking long after you've read the last line." -Jamie Michele, Readers' Favorite "There is an elegant logic that flows through the presentation of poetry in Erric’s work, Counting Days that is impressively unexpected. Much like the voice of the book, the unnamed figure whose life we are peeking into, we begin our story a little unsure of where we will be taken next. The use of titles, poem order, and day counter as a narrative tool to progress the story is what places this book in a league of its own. That being said, those devices are icing on the cake when compared to the individual poems themselves, which are painstakingly and expertly crafted to evoke a range of emotions from the reader."
-Damon Glatz, author of The End of Legends Trilogy |
