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Jon Wesick knows all the words. I know this is true because most of them appear in his book The Shaman in the Library. At least the good ones, the ones you didn’t expect to hear and too often forget to use yourself. They’re in there and they keep coming like an elusive never-ending quantum energy source that only he has the understanding to operate. These words create a world you may want to avoid actually existing in, but you sure want to find out what happens. When I’m making a spreadsheet to decide whether to kill my dog comes along, for example, it’s biologically impossible to not keep reading to see where this is going. Even words you may not want to read are in there which he, thankfully acknowledges in a litany of trigger warning phrases that give you the opportunity to choose for yourself. Sometimes you get the illusion everything is fine, but then suddenly larvae and banshees and polar bears with jailhouse tattoos come along and you’re reminded these are poems forged from an electrified imagination. The Buddha pops in to ground you, and, of course, there’s food at the end because you can’t make your way through such an epic collection without a little nosh at the end. One thing I know for sure: You should read this book. You should let Jon Wesick redefine poetry for you (at least 25 times!) You may be grateful to return to your own world, but you’ll be sneaking glimpses back into his over and over. And yes, Jon, you do have time to read one more poem. Please do.

Rick Lupert, author of The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express

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Fascinating, deeply subversive and ironic, Jon Wesick’s The Shaman in the Library is a stunning collection that traverses strange and neo-surreal landscapes by defamiliarizing the quotidian. Poems about Lagrangian mechanics, buddha, dangerous vegetables and odes to porn stars, laziness, tofu and sesshin participants create extraordinary juxtapositions with stark and satiric works including building a weapon of mass destruction, a rifle incantation and an anti-Trump rally.  Wesick’s poems challenge convention, revel in uncanny encounters and, with savage wit, demonstrate the power of poetry as a political tool for change. In The Shaman in the Library, Wesick reminds us that “the pen is a firing squad”.

Cassandra Atherton – Professor of Writing and Literature at Deakin University and coauthor of Prose Poetry: An Introduction