Caliban by John Whalen. Lost Horse Press.

80 pp 5.5 x 8.25 ISBN 0-9668612-6-4 (paper) $14.95

If you quit smoking,
but I'm still hiding somewhere
inside your pine-scented car,
does a shout explain me?
Or rain,

does rain remember the wrong river
of me slipping down hills sharper
than animals no one has ever touched?

It's true, your shoulders blossom
and blossom, and the restaurant rattles
in the storm of a train.
But I never should have talked to you.

Three yellow dogs track me
across parking lots and uprooted streets.
I walk on my hands,
but I can't shout anymore.
Not your name.

John Whalen's poems stalk the persona of the monster trapped in ourselves, and in our everyday world, and free the spirit to be lover, singer. These are poems of adroit surprise, of vivid phrase and dramatic voice, celebrating the paradox of the timeless and contemporary.
--- Robert Morgan

Caliban is a brand new voice, charged with rage, wit, and a wild, wry sweetness. John Whalen brings us an open ear, a strict eye, and a generous heart.
---Max Phillips

In John Whalen's quintessentially tempestuous Caliban, the main character is an outcast and a slave to his passions. If Shakespeare had Miranda, Whalen's Caliban has Melanie in his dream world, the working-class and suburban settings that enthrall him. The wonder of this debut book of poems is that its fractured narratives and cris de coeur reconstruct a "brilliant television orchard" of images. Although Whalen revels in disjunction, his vision is starkly focused. Caliban bristles with "pissed bees", station wagons---no it glitters, multifaceted, diamond clear! Pick it up, feel its glacial heat; meet John Whalen!
---James Reiss

John Whalen's Caliban is tempest-, whiskey-, and romance-tossed. It is also mordantly funny, peculiarly moving, and always gorgeous. These poems are as deeply pleasurable to read one at a time as in one great gulp, which is all we should ask of any book.
--- Elizabeth McCracken

John Whalen lives in eastern Washington with his two daughters. He works as a sales rep for an electronic security consultancy.

His poems have appeared in such journals as the Virginia Quarterly Review, Yellow Silk, The Hollins Critic, Willow Springs, and CutBank.