Michael Meyerhofer at Rattle
These poems are stylistically unique, mostly short (often just a few
lines) with an obvious stream-of-consciousness vibe to them, but what
really makes them leap off the page is their underlying tenderness,
their unabashed examination of the human condition that reminds me of
those famous Chinese poets, Li Po and Tu Fu.
Stephen Lloyd Webber at Green Mountains Review
Through If I Falter at the Gallows, there’s a sense of
religious constraint that seems to stem from the city and from the
pressure of being in society, now. These are poems of the mind with
plenty of “is,” joking uneasily with the rhythm of the way things are.
CL Bledsoe at Murder Your Darlings
Despite their brevity, these are difficult poems to skim; they demand
attention simply because Mullany’s writing is quite powerful and because
the scenes resonate.
Matthew Sherling at Cutty Spot
Mullany has "a similarity w/ the old Japanese
haiku masters...offering a ‘suggestive’ image pregnant w/
possibilities..."
Andrew David King at The Collagist
If conventional American short poems are too often mild-mannered dinner
guests, polite pastiches of image and conclusion, then Mullany's poems
are their evil twins. And he keeps their insidiousness almost seamless
by refusing to (at least on their faces) give them mischievous grins.
Giancarlo DiTrapano at Vice
these are little still lifes, Mullany's poems, these little cubes in my whiskey ...
Layne Ransom at Vouched
Reading these poems feels like hearing prophecies of a strange god you know will be fulfilled. Mullany breathes a quiet but swelling kind of truth, thunder or bells tolling to more bells.
Mike Young at HTMLGIANT
a book of barely unchoked poems, arrangements of scene and confession that scalpel the world like a goth kid who grew up to be a jeweler.
Diana Salier at Banango Lit
this book, which is split into parts I and II, is like a sunday morning in a quiet town with or without someone you love reading the newspaper next to you.
Tyler Gobble at Vouched
The reader, if patient, can walk around on the surface and slowly sink in, instead of sinking in from the beginning.
Sophie Rosenblum at NANO Fiction
The individual pieces and the book as a whole seem to unfold in new ways with each reading.
Mel Bosworth at the Outsider Writers Collective
Comprised of concise poems, mostly, and a few blocks of prosetry/verse fiction, Mullany’s debut collection is an absolute stunner. He moves effortlessly from heartfelt to whimsical to surprising to shocking to serious to humorous, and he does so with simple, straightforward action and imagery.
Joseph Young at Very Small Dogs
They don’t let us out, these poems. They give us these choices, “A black dot on a white wall…a white dot on a black wall,” and we are forced to choose between them. There’s no way to choose, of course, but Edward makes us anyway.
Christopher Newgent at Vouched
I picked up my cat, cradled her in my arms. I carried her in to bed and rested her next to my wife. I took off my glasses, plugged my phone in to charge, set my alarm for the morning.
J. A. Tyler at Monkeybicycle
Part clever, part insightful, part layered, part simple, Mullany’s poetry both dominates the reader and allows us inside, a push / pull welcome mat.
Herocious at The Open End
Mullany's "poems are tiny packages of infinity that bury into your soul and replay over and over until you either smile, or laugh, or push beyond into something indescribably human."
The poems of Edward Mullany are both seeing things and “seeing things.” They are devices that help us help ourselves to all the mirages and illusions—and then some—that we know to be true.
Graham Foust, author of A Mouth in California
If one of art’s purposes is to revise our perceptions, then Mullany’s work excels. His powerful use of the short line well supports this challenge. Whether they begin with the surreal or mundane, his lyrics pare to essentials poetry’s central subjects—love, death, myth—through his confident vision and craft.
Martha Serpas, author of The Dirty Side of the Storm
As do the little bottles of scotch available on airplanes, these small, potent poems suspend us above the everyday. These deft gestures expose human quandaries without getting stuck in quandariness. They eschew excess—they don’t need it. They’re precise throughout without losing their mystery.
Connie Voisine, author of Rare High Meadow of Which I Might Dream
