Last Turn Of The Midnight Carousel
Description
Matthew Abuelo's Forever Turn the Midnight Carousel is a
head-spinning depiction of harshest reality in New York City. Reading
his sequence of poetry and stories is like “visiting the world of the
forgotten.” In subway tunnels, psychiatric wards, and single occupancy
rooms are individuals depicted in such brutal honesty by Abuelo that the
reader cannot turn away or forget. Those of us fortunate enough to live
“ordinary lives with ordinary fears” won't easily file away this
writer's images–a “shut-in” dreading an eviction notice, a depressed
tenant conceding “the instinct to survive but with no will to live,” a
suicidal pedestrian for whom no cab stops. Forever Turn the Midnight Carousel
is poetic recognition of lives cordoned off from meaning by urban
excess and corruption. Through his searing poems and unflinching
narratives, Mathew Abuelo speaks for those who know “the voice can
become a severed limb.” His stark reminder of desperation just up the
block or down the hallway is a jolting call for compassion.
—Judith Austin Mills, author of Accidental Joy: a streak of poetry, and the Texas Revolution trilogy How Far Tomorrow, Those Bones at Goliad and The Dove Shall Fly
About the Author
