Leeway & Advent

Louis Gallo's short poems in Leeway & Advent are intellectually charged units of voltage (voltage, one of Gallo's recurrent images, along with wishbones and cupcakes) yet always accessible, always challenging us to think in new ways about commonplaces we all take for granted. The long, multi-sectioned lyrical poem "Advent" deconstructs the usual, traditional advent calendar yet, in the end, reconstructs it, all the baggage aside. The primal tone of Gallo's poetry is cosmic melancholy tempered with bursts of Proustian privileged moments, the anti-voltage of nostalgia sweetened with the hope of wishbones, the sweetness of cupcakes. Reading this collection straight through is indeed one of those privileged moments.--Justin Askins, author of Neversink , In Search of the Wild and Changing Terra

Comments on Scherzo Furiant

A mind well stocked with poetic lore, historical detail, and metaphysical perplexities, where ideas suddenly pop up like champagne bubbles that pleasantly inebriate the reader, plus a sense of humor that's identifiable, once you taste it, among all others in the market. What else could you wish for in a poetry collection? Ah, yes, music. You will find it all in Louis Gallo's Scherzo Furiant .

-Ricardo Nirenberg, Editor, Offcourse Literary Journal ; author of Cry Uncle and Wave Mechanics

Comments on Crash: A Sequence of Variations

Louis Gallo is a poet who is finely tuned to actualities with the ability to exhibit them from unexpected angles. Each poem arrests the attention of the readers in a way to make us stop and reflect on these intense experiences. With brilliant precision, the poems in Crash engage the readers to balance between the poet's sympathetic perception of the earnest human condition and subtle humor.

-Kristina Kočan, author of (Sara , 2008; Kolesa in murve , 2014; Sivje , 2018)Maribor, Slovenia

Comments on Archaeology

These are the mature poems of a tireless observer, a person of intense, articulated feeling, one who has remained an eager and fascinated student way beyond the call.

-Ralph Adamo, editor The Xavier Review , author of Ever