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Richard Modiano

Review

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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Review

Between Good Men & No Man at All – poetry by Pam Ward – Review

Marc Olmsted

Between Good Men & No Man at All By Pam Ward World Stage Press $20.00 Poet Richard Modiano first brought Pam Ward to my attention by telling me she was writing the introduction to his poetic collection, The Forbidden Lunchbox. I didn’t know her work, so he read her to me over the phone. I was instantly hooked by her images, candor and the gallows humor known only to those the System does not favor. Still, as an old white man and apparently retro Post-Beat poet, I would not have had the temerity to review her new work Between Good Men & No Man at All, but I was asked, so here we are. I already knew we weren’t going to get homogenized Hamilton rap or highbrow slam’s rhyming editorial language (i.e. non-imagistic). Instead I was surprised to be reminded of stumbling into an L.A. skid row grind house for the last half of Sweet Sweetback’s Bad Ass Song. Plus, like all grind house double- and triple-bills, t...
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Review

THE FORBIDDEN LUNCHBOX by Richard Modiano – REVIEW

Marc Olmsted

THE FORBIDDEN LUNCHBOX By Richard Modiano Punk Hostage Press $20.00 (Available on Amazon) How can I review a book that reviews itself so elegantly in Richard Modiano’s own preface and Pam Ward’s introduction? Then there are remarks by Viggo Mortenson and Ronne Blakely. The list goes on. THE FORBIDDEN LUNCHBOX is, unsurprisingly, a very good, even great book. It is also Richard’s first, at age 71. Not even a prior chapbook of his own, ladies and gentlemen. What took him so long? The answer may be found first in his recent 10 years as Executive Director of Beyond Baroque, the Venice Beach, California literary center equivalent of NYC’s Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. Like any true Platonic philosopher-king, he did not ask for it, let alone want it. Like the Roman Empire’s Marcus Aurelius, he ran BB with wisdom, dignity and humbleness. Alec Guinness played Marcus Aurelius in Anthony Ma...
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