“The appearance of a new book by the one and only Corey Mesler is always an occasion for gladness. In A Troubling of Goldfish Corey takes us along with him in poems—short, insightful takes, none longer than a page—full of insight about friendship and love, music and death, and a thousand other things that give life its savor and flavor. Some, like ‘Stanley at the Nursing Home,’ are heart-breaking, others bring a smile, others give a shock of recognition. Enter Corey’s world and you’ll feel less alone, better equipped to face the day. This book is like the oak tree in one of its poems: ‘In its branches blackbirds sing sweet dirges’.”
~ Richard Tillinghast, author of Blue If Only I Could Tell You and Night Train to Memphis
“Corey Mesler is a fun-loving trickster firing on all poetic cylinders. His eclectic gathering of bite-sized poems, the ultimate tapas banquet, delights, screams, laughs, and questions everything from Godard to Golgotha. ‘I Don’t Want to Play Baseball with the Surrealists Anymore’ is my new motto. Mesler is faster than the speed of life and this collection is exactly what we need right now.”
~ Richard Peabody, editor, Gargoyle Magazine and author of Guinness on the Quay
“Corey Mesler’s A Troubling of Goldfish is a book where the word love gets a soulful examination and workout-as a verb, as a noun, in present and past tense. There are moments where you can almost hear the wild, rough, sweet music of what we are and how we do begin to strum beneath these clean lines. Like Richard Brautigan, these poems seem as clear as glass, until they turn and hold your gaze like a mirror.”
~ Cornelius Eady, Hodges Chair in English, The University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and author of Brutal Imagination
