From Schism [2] Press
O Gory Baby is a lingual carnival beaming over a surrealistic junkyard, satirizing all of late capitalism's earthly delights. The book has guts. And blood. It's laughing as it bleeds, and Brad Liening's speaker is, as phrased in his poem 'Red Star' "a martyr broken into pieces//And reassembled into a man/Pumping gas on a pile of corpses."
Jessie Janeshek, author of Invisible Mink
I'm enthralled by the speed of this, and the sure-footedness. O Gory Baby emerging and emerging, like "the bodies are dragged on stage," in truth and ugly beauty, from "big primal decay." Joyously steeped in disaster and horror and punk rock staples, O Gory Baby stands on and eats at the shoulders of giants (Shakespeare, Max Jacob, etc.). Where swollen moons and ordinary, leeching suns of politics, academics and rare hipster moments blur and flare through a commitment (of immersion and distance, I mean) that oscillates greatly but is always hallucinatory as it "finishes a void" and "contains chickenshit multitudes." It blooms from the "radioactive skull," turning and tic(k)ing "in the eternal laundromat."
Rauan Klassnik, author of The Moon's Jaw
For all you still trying to figure out what a poet on a riding lawnmower is called, Brad Liening's O Gory Baby is your Alzheimer's. You wake up installing a standard killing that lasts a lifetime. In no time it's possible to reach food, medicine, and energy. Can you even move to the beat of your mowed-off arms? A masterpiece.
RC Miller, author of Mask With Sausage
When I read this book, I felt like someone shot me out of a bourbon cannon and I landed delicately on a bed of discarded bee stingers next to the ghost of Kurt Cobain, who immediately rolled over and spooned me. These poems are funny, piercing and raw works by an American literary secret weapon.
Amber Tamblyn, author of Dark Sparkler
