The Prettiest Girl at the Dance

John Dorsey’s new book The Prettiest Girl at the Dance is a wonderful meditation on love, as well as life. It is as hopeful and powerful as love itself can be. What makes these poems so special is that Dorsey writes about these women not as simply objects of desire, or conquests, no, he is writing about women and love like the way a sailor loves the sea, or an artist loves the museum. The poems are about interactions as often as relationships, we are not sure if these are women John knew or maybe just met or maybe just saw? It does not matter because they become real and concrete in his images, she is the cry of a barn owl that once thought it might die alone . The Prettiest girl in Hastings has the face of a ravaged lion! The interaction with these women can be short, but their memories live long in his heart. There is true magic in these poems, real music and the mysteries we all experience, but often cannot find words to express. John Dorsey has all those words and we are so lucky that he has written them down.-Matthew Borczon, Author of A Clock of Human Bones