Mastodon Sensitive Skin Magazine - art, stories, poetry, essays, reviews and music

Night Bird Flying by Danny Shot – Review

Richard Modiano

NIGHT BIRD FLYING by Danny Shot Roadside Press Release date: February 12, 2025. Available for pre-order. Danny Shot’s Night Bird Flying from Roadside Press is a fierce and poignant collection that captures the grit and tenderness of life on the fringes—where New Jersey meets New York and scars of the past meet the possibility of healing. Shot’s voice is steeped in the dualities of identity, blending humor with heartache and toughness with vulnerability. In “Ich bin ein New Yorker,” Shot wrestles with his outsider status in the New York literary scene, even though he lived in the city and shared spaces with renowned poets. He tackles the sting of being labeled “a Jersey poet” with wry humor and underlying frustration, bringing to light the complex sense of belonging that drives much of his work. This piece not only speaks to a personal journey but resonates with anyone who has struggled to claim a place in a wor...
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TRIPPING WITH A VIPER – by Anne Marie Maxwell – review

Marc Olmsted

Tripping with a Viper By Anne Marie Maxwell Mystic Boxing Commission $29.99 available at: www.sparringartists.com Reviewed by Marc Olmsted Much has evolved around Neal’s long lost Joan Anderson letter as the key to Jack Kerouac’s spontaneous bop prosody. Rediscovered, the big surprise is that it has nothing to do with Kerouac’s streamlined stream-of-consciousness experimental prose. Instead, it moved Jack into writing first person and about actual events with the mad energy of the multiple pages Neal had produced with blazing enthusiasm. Tripping with a Viper fills in some first-person Beat history that explains some more of the legend that is Neal Cassady. The viper of the title is actually also a “pot-head” as referenced in the song “When You’re a Viper,” written by Stuff Smith and first recorded by Rosetta Howard. Still, the ambiguity of this title can’t be merely shaken off. Anne Mar...
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