The title sequence, "No Both," was begun on the 20th anniversary of the death of Michael Gizzi's father and concluded two months later, despite states of extreme agitation, on his mother's birthday.

Here, spring meshes with issues of first and second generation immigrant anxiety, blending memories of family loyalty and power (dutiful son meets the conflicts of poetic liberation), to throw these writings into the air, like wounded birds, where they streak and tumble, wired, weary, cuckoo, brilliant-finding literary form and personal
redemption in bursts of uncanny verbal deliverance.

The second half of the book, "We See," poems since 1993, written for the most part under the influence of jazz and other musics, continues the assault on normative lyric pieties.

Critical praise for Michael Gizzi's No Both

Through the mad clutter of everyday life the poet's voice speeds along and isn't going to let you off the hook till the end of the poem, if then. Razor sharp but also rich and generously compelling, Michael Gizzi's poetry lambastes as it celebrates, bringing us finally to a place of poignant irresolution where "This music that for the moment/Takes on the work of youth" is "Held for life in fluttering devastation."

Cross James Joyce and Jack Nicholson in a high energy construct machine and you have Michael Gizzi's poems. He will tell you everything you knew was true but didn't have the guts to say. Physiologically, psychologically,and geographically, Gizzi locates the voices of us, Olson's "last first people," with an element of quick surprise that is all his own.

In the hyperbolic vernacular of the barroom confessional, Michael Gizzi delivers a full bag of urgent messages, their sources detached from the old, weird America of a not-so-distant past. Impossibly rich, these jam-packed audibles are spring-loaded to jack-knife off the page. No Both is word jazz, coiled, mortal and alive.

Yes, but who is Michael Gizzi?

Michael Gizzi was born in Schenectady, New York. He received his BA and MFA from Brown University where he studied with Keith Waldrop. Subsequently, he was associated with the circle of poets centered around Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop's Burning Deck Press. For seven years he worked as a tree surgeon in southeastern New England, before moving in the early 80's to the Berkshire Hills where he collaborated on several Kerouac-inspired projects with Clark Coolidge. For many years he organized a series of poetry readings at Melville's Arrowhead and Simon's Rock of Bard College. Most recently he has edited the Profile Series for Hard Press in West Stockbridge. He lives in Lenox and is married to the artist Barbieo Barros-Gizzi.

This is his tenth book of poetry.

Other books by Michael Gizzi:

My Grandfather's Pants, Bench Press (1973)
Carmela Bianca, Bonewhistle Press (1974)
Bird As, Burning Deck (1976)
Avis, Burning Deck (1979)
Species of Intoxication, Burning Deck (1983)
Just Like a Real Italian Kid, The Figures (1990)
Continental Harmony, Roof Books (1991)
gyptian in hortulus, Paradigm Press (1991)
Interferon, The Figures (1995)