Confessions of a Repeat Offender: Musings on a Life Gone Right in Spite of Myself

"Phillip Giambri is a two-headed fire-breathing dragon, and his first collection of poems and stories mercilessly and mercifully scorch the earth with hope and regret, anger and love, foolishness and cut-out-the-fucking-bullshit-ness, and get real, asshole. They are cynically sentimental, leaving the reader feeling at once hollow and powerless, then fully indestructible. This slim volume goes around world; sometimes in a hot-wired car speeding down a back country road, sometimes in a submarine deep in the Baltic Sea. But whether in a crowded Lower East Side Dive Bar in the 80s or a Scottish Cemetery at the height of the Cold War, Giambri's lean and lusty prose brings both his ordinary and unique experiences to vibrant life." - Russell Atwood, Author "Losers Live Longer."

About the Author :
About The Author: Phillip Giambri aka "The Ancient Mariner" A product of the streets of South Philadelphia, he obtained his deviant perspective on life listening to Jean Shepherd on WOR radio back in the '50s. Fleeing Philly at seventeen, he served in the US Navy Submarine Force, has been an actor, hairstylist, stoner, janitor, writer, drifter, recording engineer, hired hand, poet, traveling salesman, barfly, banker, biker, bronco buster, announcer, mail-order minister, photographer, and "Computer Guru". He arrived in NY City in '68, joined the Hippie pilgrimage to St. Marks Place, and never left. He's attended too many schools to mention, studying nearly everything, without ever attaining a degree in anything. His work has appeared in Artists in the Kitchen, "Walt's Corner" in The Long Islander, Silver Birch Press, and NewYorkCityTalking.com. He curates a popular monthly spoken word/poetry event, Rimes of The Ancient Mariner as well as special collaborative events with other artist/performers; most recently the very successful, Barflies & Broken Angels, The Losers Club and What The Hell Is Love? He performs original solo shows as "The Barfly," "The Village Idiot," and "The Drunken Sailor." His website "Ancient Mariner Tales" offer bored web surfers a glimpse into his futile search for self-discovery and meaning. He can be found regularly spinning yarns and telling tall tales anywhere that will tolerate him. www.AncientMarinerTales.com

Review :
ReviewONE TOO MANY TIMES AROUND THE BLOCK: Phillip Giambri's Confessions of a Repeat Offender POETRYBAY-SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2016 By Kofi Forson Confessions of a Repeat Offender: Musings on a Life Gone Right in Spite of Myself are Giambri's musings on his life gone right in spite of himself as he puts it. As a book it collapses into the mindset and psyche of an experienced man, not a "show-boater" or someone who puts a narcissist's spin on male posturing and man-sizing. The book is at once Dostoyevsky's Notes from The Underground and any number of Charles Bukowski's collections of poems and short stories. But there is less of the grandstanding and fluttering of language. Giambri has a keen eye on life as a suitcase descending a flight of stairs hoping not to crack itself open to expose all of its faults and failures. With words he doesn't pose or flex. These are gritty detailings of life lived at the seams. Confessions of a Repeat Offender is an exercise in how to drink and be good at it, spend a lifetime teetering on the edge between falling flat on your face and keeping alive enough in order to tell the stories which come with drinking, maintenance of a dive bar as a home base, characters who waltz in and out of scenarios, the deadpan beauty of dangerous women, brotherhood as of men who also served in the military and now made up groups of drunks, references to nostalgia as a celebrated time which brought him escapades around the world, an attempt at normalcy with a wife and heritage from family. The word "family" is important here because circumstantially he manifested from a life at home to finding likeness in those who reflected his masculine ideal and ethos. As collection of performances pieces featured in his stage act as The Ancient Mariner, the book is a bare-knuckled, blisteringly eye-opening account of a man in search of himself. What it takes are the accounts of his experiences with a darkened romanticism and psychology and a required vice which brings him to bear the pitfalls, gore of human life plus the realness accounted for given his upbringing, persistence within a masculine ideology and karma brought about from people who play roles in defining his life's charm. The "repeat offender" in the book's title is a result of a life spent beating the odds. "The Meaning of Existence" as a poem in which "Two dirt encrusted old winos with broken faces" share a bottle in a bag bumming smokes from passersby and discussing the meaning of existence is a Beckettian reference where nothingness is key to examining one's purpose in life. Kofi Forson is a poet and playwright living in NYC. He writes for Armseye and Whitehot Magazine.