1st printing 
 

 

 

 

 She has made him into a writer, he writes.
But who is she?
Reading this collection, you’ll feel an imperceptible rotation, pensive shadows on bleak walls, silhouetted remorse. He hurts like you. He’s lost someone, just like you. You’ll wonder, Are these shadows moving? Or am I imagining them to?
Even Doren’s delightful moments are haunted. A sidelong glance, a face that reminds you of another face. It’s ungraspable. The fear, that what’s changed is unnoticed, and what’s seen seems unchanged.
Characters change suddenly, then disappear. And guilt, so, so much of it, so palpable.
Yes, the work is sparse, adamantly calm. But these shadows limn important truths, things simple, but in need of persistent reminder. And capturing this hollow pang, the cold resonance of regret, and preserving it, offering it to the viewer wholly intact, this requires great effort.
[BRING OVER BEER WHILE I’M TRYING TO GET SOBER & Other Poems makes it clear that] even the quietest poet surely howls into the unforgiving night.

-editor’s note

BRING OVER BEER WHEN I’M TRYING TO GET SOBER & Other Poems by DYLAN DOREN release party

THE L.A. FORT, 736 CERES AVE., LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90021

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

  

 

2nd printing

cover art by Jesse Michaels ( Operation Ivy)

You never recover from heartache. The myth of transcendence is a lie. Dylan Doren doesn’t buy into the bullshit, but he accepts and endures in his newest chapbook of poems, BRING OVER BEER WHEN I’M TRYING TO GET SOBER. The short, fragmented lines reflect the shattering experience of loss. Reading it is like picking up the pieces and trying to make sense of them. You can’t make sense of the senseless, of course, but you can go on. That’s all you can do. –goodreads