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This powerful new collection by Richard Fox is moving and delightful. To quote his Uncle Louie, “You earned your ribeye, kid!” ~ Lori Desrosiers, Keeping Planes in the Air
Richard Fox, like us all was ‘born to live’ but this collection of his living, breathing poetry is born to live on your bookshelves forever, to be removed, breathed upon, and celebrated.~ Timothy Gager, 2020 Poems
How I love the universe that Richard Fox invites me to visit: Zayde, Uncle Louie, Cassie, Beeb, Bekah. I know them all. And the friends and fellow travelers in the infusion rooms, the hospice wards. Family. ‘Spectators soothe the living.’ Richard Fox’s book Once I was born to live is about love. ‘I love you,’ he writes. Thank you, Richard, for your gift of love. ~ Jennifer Martelli, Queen of Queens
Richard Fox travels to the heart of living in Once I was born to live. His poems truly are a ‘deft landing,’ a testament to his writing. He knows how to deliver. His honesty, a force that grabs, and doesn’t let go.~ Gloria Mindock, editor of Červená Barva Press
Being Jewish I delighted in this cornucopia of ethnic food, the enigma wrapped in a mystery of a Jewish family, and remembered my own nana, eccentric uncles, and that long lost connection to an old world that informs the new. ~ Doug Holder, Co-President of the New England Poetry Club
These poems sing of the subtle treasures and piercing bittersweetness of human existence. You’ll long for more time, more life, more poetry, after reading this beautiful book. ~ Chloe McFeters, C is for Courage, Still, But Not Silent, and Journey into Poetry
The peal of chimes behind his words is ever-present in the worlds he creates unfolding on the page.~ Susan Isla Tepper, What Drives Men
“When I choose the word ‘valuable’ to describe Richard Fox’s latest collection, embracing the burlesque of collateral damage, I do so deliberately, because to read these poems, which move the reader back and forth, sometimes dizzyingly, between the middle of the last century and the current day, is to receive gift after gift, courtesy of a writer whose wit, humor, and compassion are extraordinary. Whether the people you meet are women, men, and children with whom the speaker shares a cancer journey in 2019, or hippie comrades from half a century ago, these are beings you won’t soon forget. Some of the poems will wring your heartstrings; others will tickle your funny bone. Don’t read these poems unless you are willing to learn, body part by hospital stay by chemo treatment, what a cancer journey is really like, when it is being lived and observed by someone who is paying full attention to the details. Do read them if you are in love with the whole splashy, wild, experience that is the human condition.”
- Annie Stenzel author of First Home Air After Absence
“Richard H. Fox’s latest collection, embracing the burlesque of collateral damage, explores and confronts the drama—the poetry—within the body. We are introduced to the mundane and apathetic horror of cancer: a mother, about to endure another chemo session, must leave her infant with her twin sister. Fox is a master of this twining and twinning: the story of his cancer is woven with the story of family—Cassie, Meg, Beeb, and of course, Uncle Louie. Fox tells an earthy, visceral story-in-verse of Holocaust survivors, children of pogroms, cheap beer, domestic abuse, and enduring devotion. This lineage is as much a part of the body as disease; this history is as much a part of the story as cancer. Our bodies dictate the rules./No wild cards, aces high, fresh decks. Fox greets the indignity of cancer treatment with humor and an unflinching eye. He asks us, the receivers of his poems, Do you hear my poems? Yes, and we’re left, at the end, understanding the threshold on which we balance. Thank you, Richard H. Fox, for this masterful collection. I, for one, will carry embracing the burlesque of collateral damage with me for a long time.
~ Jennifer Martelli author of The Uncanny Valley and My Tarantella
"Unlike any other form, a poem is a conversation. Richard Fox knows how to bring discourse to an unabashed place which is at once challenging, vulnerable, erotic and superbly human. Death hovers above all and Fox reaches out to touch it with humor and sharp tongue. His words confront and bedazzle cancer, family and faith. Thoughtfully shaped with craft and time, these poems demonstrate what a master can do when he puts his pen to it."
- Jim Gustafson, author of Take Fun Seriously, Driving Home., and Unassisted Living
“The poems in Richard Fox’s latest collection brim with grace and truth. With great precision and courage, Fox leads the reader into the disorienting darkness of illness and loss, of longing and memory, and illuminates that darkness with wisdom, humor, and hope. This is a stunning book.”
- Eliza Locke author of Kissing In Iceland and The Tree Angel: A True Urban Tale
“In You’re my favorite horse, the latest collection by poet Richard H. Fox, we are taken on an unforgettable adventure. From Fox’s vulnerable bathroom conversations with a crow and a dog, to a crowded and hopeful hospital room with a 'boy [who] can sew,' to an unconventional hair salon with a 'guillotine notched sink,' we experience the hard truths and deep emotions of illness, loss, love, and regret. In the end, Fox’s wise and exquisite poems remind us, gently and masterfully, that 'it is nearly dusk' for each one of us, and ask: What will we do with this light we have left?”
- Chloé McFeters author of C is for Courage, The Ally Within and Still, But Not Silent
"Eleanor Roosevelt spoke of the confidence and courage that come when one has looked fear in the face. She could have been speaking about Rich Fox, whose new book is testament to that remarkable confidence and courage. These poems ring with a power and intensity that come only after achieving a kind of fearlessness, having looked fear in the face and becoming empowered to speak honestly and with great conviction now about love and war and loss and friendship. Fox wanders in the puzzle box of life with a clear-eyed intensity, as a gifted writer, observer and friend to us all, writing with 'flashes of yearning, grace' about this puzzling, mysterious, and infinitely beautiful world."
- John Hodgen, AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry, author of Grace and Heaven & Earth Holding Company
"Fox is a writer worth paying attention to."
- Victor D. Infante, Telegram.com
"Richard Fox’s unique muse wanders through the landscapes of cancer, aging, mourning, Judaism and Boomer memory to produce poems of riveting power and imagination. His cancer poems are unforgettable and his remembrances of times past and friends lost are propelled by a compelling lyrical narrative that seeks to unlock the truth from the puzzle boxes of life and loss within us."
- Joe Pacheco, Sanibel Joe's Songbook and Alligator in the Sky
“Richard Fox honors the phrase 'provoked to poetry.' His poems are provoking and provocative and the very best of them deal with suffering and illness, with wildness and a new kind of Jewish identity. Time Bomb is not cancer free. It is vital and essential reading.”
- Liz Rosenberg, author of The Laws of Gravity and Home Repair
“Rich Fox calls himself a small poet at large, but there is nothing small about the poems in Time Bomb. They are large-themed and large-hearted, framed by a world at war with itself and a world all the more lovely when it is almost taken from us, when we see how filled to overflowing it is with light and joy and longing and loss. These are well crafted, poignant, clever and ultimately wise poems which leave the reader wanting to believe one can throw one’s arms around this hard won world, and, better yet, that the world will hold us in its arms as well.”
- John Hodgen, AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry, author of Heaven & Earth Holding Company and Grace
"I found myself reading Time Bomb the way I read Shakespeare ... slow, savoring each line individually before considering its contribution to the poem. With descriptive precision and loving humor Richard Fox brought me deeper into his world than I would have previously believed possible. This was the most satisfying read I have had in years." - Don White, author, singer songwriter, comedian