All My Rowdy Friends is composed of poems about addicts, alcoholics, criminals, and derelicts. Friends also explores gender dysphoria through the Tiresias stories. The poems are both personal and personal myth all at once, and Friends is as much about telling stories as it is anything else.
Finalist in the 13th Annual USA Book Awards for poetry.
Named exemplar book of poetry by the Washington Independent Review of Books.
PRAISE FOR ALL MY ROWDY FRIENDS
“ . . . none of us/are immune to the light . . . . ” and indeed, none of us are. In Scott Whitaker’s latest collection, All My Rowdy Friends, an imaginative and often rococo reimagining of the Tiresias legend resituated in the twenty-first century, the reader is challenged not just by the overturning of whatever conventional point of view they may personally hold, but by the shattering of poetic conventions as well. Whitaker breaks the poetic fourth wall, that single-step remove from the text that situates the reader in a secure place as an (often passive) observer, and insists that the reader participate in that reimagining. Make no mistake, this is a collection that engages and sometimes repels at the same time, a series of works which will have you pouring over the poet’s copious footnotes like a freshman in search of a citation to crib for an overdue paper. Brilliant, as the brightest light is brilliant, this is a light to which no one will be immune.
– Jamie Brown, Author of Sakura, 2013 Best Book of Verse, Delaware Press Association.
“All My Rowdy Friends is sex appeal met with man’s uncertainty; dark with an edgy bite to it. Love painted stark, pain written thick; a beautiful photograph. There’s a grit to the sex that makes it squirm. Poetry that includes visits to childhood, to mind-altering states and beyond, and a cast of characters that will slice your fingers if you press the page too hard.”
–Jax Miller, best selling author of Freedom’s Child.
PunksWritePoems Press, LLC is an poetry and fiction publisher out of Chesterfield, VA. PWP is dedicated to publishing poetry and literary arts. Visit us at: https://punkswritepoems.wordpress.com/
Jason Bates – Founder/Editor editor@punkswritepoems.com
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