Drunk on Ophelia

Drunk on Ophelia by Larry Duncan is 42 pages of poetry and digital art by Ken Oddist Jones. Filled with mythic imagery and punctuated by a bluesy beat, Drunk on Ophelia is brutal, honest, and fearless in its depiction of a gritty world of cigarette smoke and good whiskey, dark waters and dark days, sadness and melancholia, lost love and haunting memories. Each line is painfully crafted, details are chosen to break the heart, and humor is used to soften the blow and keep the mind sane. Duncan is a fine, very talented poet. Bunkong Tuon, author of Gruel (NYQ Books) Drunk on Ophelia is a black and white movie projected onto the graffiti’d walls of an alleyway for nighthawks to enjoy after hours at diners still alive in obscurity, where sincere and visionary poets like Larry Duncan capture each and every midnight movie frame on cocktail napkins next to girl’s numbers written in stranger’s lipstick, poems that bleed with the feel of timeless lost souls who lurk in the last private corners not hit by the indifference of a California sunrise, where these poems make passionate, barroom sink love to an endangered muse dressed to the nines in perfect authenticity. Duncan leaves you jealous that you’re not out there past midnight alongside him, but he’s generous enough to let us all tag along for a little while in this sensual collection of masterful, honest poetry. –Kevin Ridgeway, author of Contents Under Pressure (Crisis Chronicles Press)