The Book of Ain't

The Book of Ain't is an elegiac stand-up comedy. It's a juggernaut of swoon and contagion. Jism, muscle, and yawp. An underbelly of crocodiles and peat. Raging like a mythical river. It would be a fallacy to call this one man's psychogeography of America-it is, and it ain't. It's the psychogeography of a coalition of desperado fallen angels; those who did their best to resist the compromises that come with terms like Human and Society. Whether running through corridors of skyscrapers bombarded with tear gas, or running into the heart of the woods with little more than a hunting knife, the lost boys and fae beguiling molls in these poems are breathing, reanimated from memory and peat and stand on each page, daring you to address them. Ain't is a book of tributes, not just to fallen comrades, but to fallen nature. Crossley summons the custodians of this land who reigned before smallpox blankets. Each poem is word jazz, sinuous, constantly defying its own form. His language strikes a fine balance between the blunt and arcane. It's not hip, meaning it's not bland. The humor of this book is especially seen when Crossley addresses the passage of time-with wry lines about the dating pool of every town in Montana, giving sass to Ian Curtis, his descriptions of withered altars, 'pepper punks' on the bar circuit, the leak of modernity in the form of Instagram witches and rising rents. Like a prophet, he speaks of what came before, is beneath, what doth encroach. Thank the undergods, the above-gods, the nonexistent winking out of antimatter gods that Crossley is around and his writing is real.-Jennifer Robin