Navy Blue

"Navy Blue is an exhilarating, guerrilla romp through tabloid news talk and Internet inanity to set up the seditious poetry Marshall McLuhan wouldve written if he couldve. These poems are a cross of Bob Dylan casual strangeness and Jimi Hendrix bluesy surrealism. (Think Visions of Johanna mixed with My Friend.) Each line could spin off into its own bizarre screenplay: The doctor kept cutting / Now the blood was everywhere / I listened to the crickets / Their prayers sounded like my bicycle." Nicely, Meagher gives shout-outs to Ray Souster and Irv Layton, claiming their street-wise vernacular and sardonic, ironic insights. But I see a touch of Dick Brautigan here too, in the accomplished insouciance, the freedom to just say and have the meaning be in that liberty. Ladies, gents, heres the new vibe. Ready to be experienced?" -- George Elliott Clarke, Parliamentary Poet Laureate
"Steve Meagher's Navy Blue is full of ghost voices, fever dreams, cowboy saints and hard scrabble benediction." -- Singer-songwriter Jason Collett