The City as Modern Mausoleum by Peter Faziani

“There’s a city beneath the city,” writes Peter Faziani in his incisive new collection, and in poem after poem he pushes relentlessly past the phony façades to expose the brutalities and inequities of modern urban life. Here, citizens must “[feign] a middle-class salary” and their lives become “habitual / motion sans meaning.” Like city noise reverberating off glass buildings and concrete, these poems echo with tense, energetic, layered music where word sounds ricochet and suddenly morph—“a bludgeon” becomes in the next line “a glutton,” “boozie” becomes “boujie,” and “channels” become “charnels.”  This startling wordplay makes Faziani’s stark vision of our world feel palpably present. “The city hides the skeletons / under the bridge,” writes Faziani, and in this fierce chapbook he digs them up, refusing to forget.

–Jeffrey Bean – Author of Woman Putting on Pearls

In these poems, Peter Faziani circles around “the city,” intrigued, offended, amazed— obsessed—searching for every turn of sight, every shift of language that will reveal its all.

–Matthew Roberson – Author of List: A Novel