Triple Threat

by John Dorsey

Crisis Chronicles Press is ecstatic to welcome the new year with the publication of John Dorsey's Triple Threat, a perfect bound collection of three chapbooks in one. John is widely esteemed as one of the best writers in America and his work is unique and essential.

Triple Threat is 55 pages, perfect bound, 5.5x8.5". Contents include The Dusty and Lofty Dreams of Middle Class Fairy Princesses (a very rare, long out-of-print chapbook from 2004) as well as Dorsey's more recent chapbooks Street Maps for Lost Souls and Ghost on the Inside. ISBN: 978-1-64092-975-3. Front cover image by Steven B. Smith.

55 pages, Paperback

Published January 18, 2018

About the author

John Dorsey lived for several years in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw's Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory, (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Appalachian Frankenstein (GTK Press, 2015) Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016), Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Press, 2017) and Triple Threat (Crisis Chronicles, 2019). He has served as the Poet Laureate of Belle, Missouri. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.

Reviews

[John Burroughs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crisis Chronicles Press and I are ecstatic to welcome the new year by publishing John Dorsey's Triple Threat, a perfect bound collection of three chapbooks in one. John is one of the best writers in America and his work is unique and essential.

[Catherine Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

BOOK REVIEW: Triple Threat by John Dorsey



Triple Threat is well named. Three poetry chapbooks by John Dorsey, a prolific poet with strong ties to Ohio and Missouri, are bound together within its pages, with freeverse poems about urban life, romance, sex, writing, and untimely deaths. It's an eclectic collection, and I found myself reading through the poems more quickly than I usually do, getting impressions of Dorsey's views and experiences. 


Some lines made me laugh out loud, like the first few in "mousehunt"


i wear my erection     like an invitation

to oblivion      and i've never understood

the term "birthday suit"

...



Other poems left me feeling oddly, disturbingly nostalgic, like in "for the storybook romantic"


...

monsters no longer hide      under the bed

they've punched out      the glass ceiling on hate

placing sylvia plath's head  in an easy bake oven

replacing lines       of poetry

with gingerbread      watered down dreams

baked in doll houses    lined with lead poisoned painted

                                         family portraits

...



Every so often I'd find a particular line or image that resonated with me which I would reread, like finding dandelions in a field of poppies, but overall the book (or books?) seemed more impressionist. I didn't necessarily care for every single poem, but I really enjoyed the entire book.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic collection put together by Crisis Chronicles Press, one of the most innovative poetry presses out there today. The book is comprised of three previously published Dorsey chapbooks. It is a thrill to have these three collection brought together as one. John Dorsey is the poet of the lost in-betweeners of America. Those who are literally neither here, nor there, but always on the ambiguous outskirts of the American dream never achievable. His poems beautifully capture the lives, loves and loss of such a large populace in this land who are so often left unacknowledged.

[Richard Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this poetry. It seems like the lines are alive like nerves. The images like body parts work together cleanly and with a feeling of generosity.