Advanced Praise for "Of All The Meals I Had Before..." and "No One Dies at the Au Bon Pain" by Doug Holder

(Doug Holder)

I will have poetry collections released by http://sunnyoutside.com and the http://www.cervenabarvapress.com in April and May 2007. Here is some advanced commentary:

"No One Dies At The Au Bon Pain" ( http://www.sunnyoutside.com)

Bones and humanity--reflections and stone- passion and tears from a glass eye... Inside, upon these pages you'll find Doug Holder has strapped you upon his back and has taken you for a ride in mortality... and beyond...these poems are poignant paintings of life and the depth its decades imprint upon a man's soul and the catacombs of its joy and pain. This one of his best works yet."

Jennifer Matthews/ author of "Fairytales and Midemeanors" http://www.jennifermatthews.com

" Doug Holder's poems take you on a dream mind ride with the common moments and things in life. The images and angles of thought and language are at once familiar and plain and odd. They are the dreams of dreams you think you remember, the thoughts you had before you remember something. They are flashes of insight and snapshots of time, and place and humanity. The poems have the sense you feel when you have an idea for a poem just before falling asleep and you say you'll write it down in the morning, but it drifts into dreamland and you forget. Reading the poems of Doug Holder, you feel as though you remember that great poem you forgot."

Dan Sklar/ Head of Creative Writing/ Endicott College

"With confidence and ocassional flashes of humor, these are poems ( lamentations/ meditations) on what was, is, and ultimately will be. They are strong and unapologetic in both their rage and acceptance, offering up a clear view of the truth--that no one gets out of here alive."

Gloria Mindock/ Cervena Barva Press http://www.cervenabarvapress.com

"Doug Holder's poems from his new collection NO ONE DIES AT THE AU BON PAIN are psychological studies delivered in spare, elegant lines. Though often located in the most quotidian of settings, they explore the heights and depths of the human soul. And when we, as readers, find hm standing before the mirror in the public restroom, we look up to find the visage reflected is our own."

Richard Wilhelm/ Arts/ Editor Ibbetson Street Press

"This book is a gift, the silhouette of restlessness as Holder studies the way things end and sees there is no real ending. He celebrates " ... a standing chant, a prayer for the common man." Holder understands compassion as generosity in tender poems carved from the quickened wood of the moment."

Afaa Michael Weaver/ Professor of English/ Simmons College / Boston

"Of All The Meals I Had Before..." ( Cervena Barva Press)

"Some poems make you hungry, and some poems want to make you throw up. These food poems are served up spicy like Italian cuisine. Read them before dinner or after desert, either way like Chinese food, you'll be hungry for more."

A. D. Winans

"A delightful and delicious collection of poems, whetting the appetite for more. These are the kinds of witty, Jewishy poems I envision Woody Allen would write, should he ever take to writing poetry. "

Helen Bar-Lev, Artist, PoetEditor-in-Chief Voices Israel Anthology
author: Animals are Nature's Poetry
co-author: Cyclamens and Swords and other poems about Israel

Praise for "Wrestling With My Father"

Robert Olen Butler (Pulitzer Prize Winner- "A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain") commenting on Holder's collection of poetry: "Wrestling With My Father:" "I’ve been greatly enjoying your poems. You have a major league talent, man."

Martha Collins ( Professor of Creative Writing-Oberlin College, and author of "Blue Front," (Gray Wolf Press) commenting on "Wrestling With My Father.":--so I did get this, at Porter Square, (Books) and found it wonderfully moving. My one and only chapbook is about my mother in her final years: more about those years than, as in yours, a whole life with a parent--but the emotions surrounding parental loss are near and dear to my heart. Thanks for heading me that way."