PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
April 2021
THE LEFT BEHIND
A Poetry Collection
The Poetry Press of Press Americana
ISBN: 9781735360126
105 pages
6 x 9
$15.00
The Left Behind is a collection of poetry in conversation with the writings of Yuval Noah Harari, Daniel Dennett, Wendy Brown, Shoshana Zuboff, Keith Gessen, Ann Case, Angus Deaton, Ernest Becker, and Stephen Hawking. These poems urge humanity to think about the effects of wealth inequality, genetics, politics, capitalism, and other social issues with global impact.
REVIEWS
Rich Murphy chronicles…the shift towards a dystopia that such cornerstones of modern capitalism as inequality, driven consumerism, & a reliance on credit & technology are inexorably edging us towards. “Human value sells on the magazine rack / beside the checkout counter,” he writes. This is a book of warnings, an all-seeing eye casting its gaze out into the future & outlining its potential shape based on what is happening now & will continue to happen if we do little to stop it. There is nothing gentle in its messages: “The bill for rights comes due soon.” The Left Behind recounts a search for a nation’s soul & conscience that proves fruitless, a frightening look at what surrounds us. It is a collection for, of, & about our times, but its very presence is a powerful reminder that we are not necessarily powerless to affect change.
—Mark Young, Editor, Otoliths
In his new collection, The Left Behind, Rich Murphy maneuvers time and space to bring us to a new sense of being. There are collisions in these pieces, making the conscience of these poems active and resigned. A small moment expands into the myriad consolations of a creative life. With wit, mournful logic, and the shivery creation of a new literary world, he draws us inevitably to these poems in joyful celebrations of language and the human imagination. Sheer intelligent joy runs through this book, hurray!
—Geoffrey Gatza, author of APOLLO and The Albatross Around the Neck of Albert Ross
Given his sincere and profound concern with the way all the “Main Street workers jitterbug / into suicidal face-time depressions,” the poet encourages us not only to pay attention to how we have been evolving as a species but also to re-examine the kind of life we have been living. A beautiful book particularly worth reading in this trying time!
—Yuan Changming, Chief Editor, POETRY PACIFIC
Rich Murphy is an observer of the American experience. This is poetry as witness, in the vein of Emerson’s “transparent eyeball” and Whitman’s poet-journalist, a voice compelling both in its levelheadedness and in its wholeheartedness. At once poetical and empirical, both in conception and in its deposition, this is real-world verse with the force of parable – and the punch of recognition.
—Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Poetry Editor, Eratio
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rich Murphy’s poetry collections have won the The Poetry Prize at Press Americana twice for Americana (2013) and The Left Behind (2020) and Gival Press Poetry Prize for Voyeur (2008). Books Prophet Voice Now, essays by Common Ground Research Network and Practitioner Joy, poetry by Wipf and Stock were published in 2020. He has published eight other poetry collections. He has taught at colleges and universities and is currently guest lecturer at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
CONTACT INFORMATION
The Poetry Press of Press Americana
editor@americanpopularculture.com
https://americanpopularculture.com
