Ghosts by Hugh Fox

Ghosts. Poetry by Hugh Fox. ( Green Panda Press 3174 Berkshire Rd. Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118 greenpandapress@yahoo.com

When you reach a certain age I am told, you start seeing ghosts. They lurk in the corner of your eye, a familiar voice calls to you and then vanishes into the ether. Poet Hugh Fox, author of the controversial memoir “Way, Way Off the Road…” ((Ibbetson 2005) has reached a point in his life where there is much more to look back on than to look ahead to. In “Ghosts” Fox is haunted by the “old gang” in Chicago: “…all the old gang at the Swedish Club in Chicago 60 years ago, 40 years ago, all starting to hang around the house now,/ wait for me in the backyard, /get inside my arms and /brain so that everything I do or say/echoes/re-creates them…”

Fox always uses a wild infusion of images in his work: the old warehouses in Boston and Chicago, the literary and pop culture references, the litany of names and faces from his past. Fox’s poetry is like a grand, lyrical grocery list. It is as if he has to get it all out, and quick, before the fat lady sings or the shit hits the fan.

Highly Recommended.

Doug Holder/Ibbetson Update