Every Word Was Once Drunk

In Ian Bodkin’s first book of poems Every Word Was Once Drunk, the oracular and the ecstatic meet in the searing character of Drunk who is splashed across these pages like so much lighter fluid. His poems make me want to laugh and dance and wail deep into the night all the way to the stars. He is already a poet to be cherished and celebrated, already a poet to be loved and read again and again.

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Praise for Every Word Was Once Drunk

In Ian Bodkin’s first book of poems Every Word Was Once Drunk, the oracular and the ecstatic meet in the searing character of Drunk who is splashed across these pages like so much lighter fluid. His poems make me want to laugh and dance and wail deep into the night all the way to the stars. He is already a poet to be cherished and celebrated, already a poet to be loved and read again and again.

—Robert Vivian

The poems in Ian Bodkin’s Every Word Was Once Drunk experience an inebriation of symbols and signs loosed from fixed ideas. Fluid in the range of observations and activities contemplated, the poems, through the mythic character of Drunk, betray and reveal a widening perspective and a poetic mind relaxing into possibilities. Spirits serve this collection a fine turn of phrase.

—Cheryl Pallant

Ian Bodkin’s haunted sequence, with its wounded and bewildered protagonist, Drunk, has something of the wordplay and tonal slipperiness of Berryman’s Dream Songs. But the collection is much more than a mere homage. It is also impressive for its philosophical and semiotic reckonings and for a stance of stoical survivor hood that is ultimately the book’s most notable accomplishment. This is a very fine work indeed, and a splendid debut collection.

—David Wojahn

About the Author

Ian Bodkin received his MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has appeared in Marco Polo Arts Magazine, Atlas & Alice, Rain Taxi, and Scissors and Spackle, among others. He teaches writing and literature at both a high school and community college in Richmond, VA.

Every Word Was Once Drunk

Praise for Every Word Was Once Drunk

About the Author

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