Seriously riveting read. Sizemore’s sense of metaphor appeals to me a lot. It’s like film noir monologue, gritty, visceral, hard-boiled. His content reminds me of Bukowski, and the way he dives into selfhood, and then dives deeper, and deeper still. This stuff’s dark but there’s redeeming truth in it. - Daniel Ari, poet The second chapbook of poems to be released by bestselling poet Jay Sizemore, delves into the dark waters of obsession, relationships, objectification, and desire. Bare and bold honesty proves to be essential to this exploration, through poems that don’t flinch and strike to the heart and guts of the matter.
In Confessions of a Porn Addict, Jay Sizemore bravely dives into the pool of desire, compulsion, and dealing with the consequences. In the opening poem, Sizemore writes, I hate lying, but I lie to myself. This character can’t help himself, though it doesn’t mean he’s happy: These walls are painted with regret, / and broken promises / linger like ghosts in the halls. Even if these poems are relayed through an unreliable narrator, there’s an honesty lurking that is rarely found in poetry. In It’s selfish to demand honesty, Sizemore declares, the butterflies will never love you, and it’s the kind of truth that a person who admits to objectifying his love interests can deliver. The subject may feel raw at times, but Confessions of a Porn Addict delivers beauty in its honest appraisal of desire and wanting to be desired. Robert Lee Brewer, author of Solving the World’s Problems.
Jay Sizemore writes in the tradition of books like Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Confessions of a Hope Fiend, and Life Studies. These are poems that Thomas da Quincey might have written had he heard The Beatles, poems that Timothy Leary might have written if he were a poet with Tourette’s, poems that Robert Lowell might have written if he’d had access to the Internet. These are poems to read when you can’t sleep, poems to deeply inhale and hold in your lungs, poems that will make you want to double-click and double-click until satisfied. Tom Hunley, author of PLUNK, and The Poetry Gymnasium.
