About the Book
So you ask, what's behind the poetry? Cynicism. Sarcasm. Sadness. The balance of love and joy weighed against hate and depression where the latter wins out and we all lose. Advancing age where one senses his or her own mortality and responsibilities we bear to make things right - and that there likely will never be enough time to do so. That so much of what we write about with passion is not the love and kindness that exists, but the love and kindness we want and need to exist but that more often evades us. Putting these thoughts into print is a way to fend off the ghosts that appear before me every day, that reach out with fearsome intimacy and whose deadly intentions are cast out momentarily only by thoughts of family. Then there's the satisfaction one derives from wordplay and the occasional paroxysm experienced when arriving at just the right turn of phrase.
About the Author :
Michael Foldes (b 1946) is an American poet, publisher, authorand businessman. Born in Baltimore, MD, he grew up in Endwell, New York, later graduating from The Ohio State University inanthropology. In 2004, Foldes founded Ragazine.cc, a free, global, online magazine of art, information and entertainment. The bimonthlyzine ceased publication in December 2019. Partial archivesremain online at www.ragazine.cc.Foldes's publications and projects include the anthologies "StoppedDead: The End of Poetry," "In an Early Hour," and "Sand andSnow"; Sleeping Dogs: A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping"(Split Oak Press, Ithaca, NY, 2012), and Sandy: Chronicles of aSuperstorm in collaboration with artist Christie Devereaux. In 2017, he completed Fashions & Passions" a series of ekphrastic poems incollaboration with artist Christopher Panzner. Panzner and Foldesrecently completed a second collection titled "End Game," 75poems with images created by Panzner in response to the poems.His poetry collection Some Stuf f is available as a Kindle edition onAmazon.Foldes's articles, editorials, poems, reviews, interviews and storieshave appeared in publications worldwide, some in translation inRomanian, Hungarian, Japanese, French and Spanish. Publishingcredits include l'Oeil de la Photographie, Where is the Jazz Festival, Mobius, Southern Literary Review, the Village Voice, High Times, TheSeventh Quarry, Paterson Literary Review, CLH/Romania, We Are YouPoetry anthology, From the Finger Lakes, Folazil (France), and Rosebud, among others. An interview with Foldes by Carol Smallwoodappeared in the Scarlet Leaf Review, and in Wilderness House LiteraryReview.His jobs have included lifeguard, grocery store bagger, potatopeeler, construction worker, magazine editor, newspaper editor, social worker, electronic component sales rep, and medical videoproducts sales engineer. One of his favorite gigs was bartending atthe National Poetry Society in Earl's Court Square, London, wherethe Guinness was warm and the patrons amazing.He and his wife have three children and two grandchildren. Theylive in New York's Southern Tier a few hundred yards from theSusquehanna River.
Review :
Don't expect to find a bouquet of poems neatly tied together by a common theme or style; if anything brings these highly divergent poems together, it is probably the date of their creation as the fruits of the same harvest season, a recent one. Mike Foldes always tends to be very eclectic, open to any style, any theme, but in each of his poems, no matter how unique, his voice sounds authentic whether he speaks of personal experiences or editorializes on current political events. None of the poems are made to order; they all just seem to have burst out from the creative nook of the poet's mind and dictated their own style. Some readers-whether they be critics or just lovers of poetry-may find themselves at a loss faced with such wide range of eclecticism, but I applaud it and the poet's unhesitating answer to an inner call; however, my favorites are the short spiffy ones that say more by telling less, such as the footballer and gravity: "...when
gravity / takes me where / all things go, / pray / what's there / will make me / the believer / you said / i would become."
-Paul Sohar, a fellow poet and occasional critic; author of "In Sun's Shadow."
Mike Foldes's chapbook, "Original Sin", weaves a fine-spun and well-designed American "poetic" carpet knit together with vibrant words, which are not mild incantations, but rather words that allow readers to confront their greatest fears (i.e., aging, illness, impotence, war, loveless love, betrayal, darkness, or the current global rise of right-wing totalitarian fascism). For instance, in precise "clear-cut" language, in the poem "The Sedition Edition," Foldes captures the full anti-American treasonous horror of January 6, 2021's U.S. Capitol insurrection.
-Jose Rodeiro, recipient of an NEA, Fulbright Fellowship, and an Oscar B. Cintas Fellowship in painting
"where do we go/ from here?/ where is the ladder?/ where are the stars?" asks the final poem in this thoughtful, outrageous chapbook. Original Sin deftly encapsulates the pandemic, a year like no other, filled with love lost, insurrection, aging, drugs, death, and, yes, love found again. Foldes asks the hard questions. His answers might surprise you.
-Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of Explicit: New & Selected, poetry editor, Cultural Daily.
