Unreconstructed

"The power of his work strikes hard, like Wright and Frost did….With this book we’re witnessing the kind of poetry that changes American literature." —Tar River Poetry 

"Anyone who becomes acquainted with the poetry of Ed Ochester will not soon forget it….His world whether of memory or of nature, is characterized by miracles: the surprise of a golden bird or a troop of owls, …a tenderness of perception, and the solace of humanity and love." —Academy of American Poets 

"Often chatty, usually likable and occasionally profound, Ochester’s fluent free verse also includes a remarkable range of subjects, from his own Polish immigrant heritage to Fred Astaire, Retired Miners, shopping malls, Rust Belt retirees, a baboon watching apes, Mike’s Lymphoma, Pasta, My Penis and empty trains, whose chugging makes the repeated sound ‘Eisenhower Eisenhower Eisenhower.’" —Publisher’s Weekly 

"Ed Ochester has his thumb on the American pulse and his ear tuned to the American voice–in all its urban-suburban-backyard-backwoods- rustbelt-ad-agency and Hollywood-inspired dreaming and folly. He smiles at it, he loves it, he makes us love it too.... I salute Ochester’s Whitmanic yawp and tenderness." —Alicia Ostriker