“Halliday’s is an entire poetics of the available—a direct, often quietly comic voice capable of piercing emotional climaxes or bracingly tart cynicism.”—Ken Tucker, The New York Times Book Review

"A modern romantic poet, Halliday is wittily alert to our social interactions, whether he's making poetry out of everyday cell-phone chatter and business jargon, or describing a tedious, niceties-filled evening at a social-obligation party with a doleful deadpan."—Entertainment Weekly

There are many voices within these poems, each distinct and accessible, all of them subversive and disarmingly personal. This nimble poet deftly lures readers to his penetrating observations by not being afraid to open his own emotional veins; he often leads the way with a torch lit by his own pain. Yet his beguiling humor paradoxically occupies the same space as his deepest grief, bringing honest perspective and insight to the most sorrowful circumstance.

Often, his self effacement can be subterfuge; in a moment his razor wit can catch you off guard and expose a veiled truth emanating from an almost tribal wisdom. These are smart, clear poems that echo with simplicity and honesty, resonating well beyond the personal, for Halliday’s unpretentious droll voice is an instrument finely tuned to invoke a more thoughtful comprehension of the commonality of human experience.

Mark Hallidayhas published four books of poetry. He has won the Juniper Prize and was selected for the National Poetry Series. He is also the author of two books of literary criticism. Halliday has a PhD in English from Brandeis University, and currently teaches at Ohio University.

"Known for garrulously comic moments and dead-on versions of modern Americans' colloquial speech, Halliday (Jab) begins his fifth book of verse with purposely flat and intensely serious poems reacting to the death of his father, who lived 'not without some gladness till he was eighty-nine,/ nourished as well as ravaged by irresistible wishing.' That personal sadness inspires reflections on mortality more generally, at the start as at the end of this striking collection. In between, though, Halliday flaunts his gift for informal humor, poking fun at contemporary ephemera while finding the element of memento mori in each. 'Google Me Soon,' one poem invites: 'You and I, we could have a connection.' 'I'm the little cup of overcooked beans,' another poem decides, 'somebody covered with plastic wrap and pushed to the back of/ the fridge.' It can be hard to know when Halliday is kidding — but that difficulty is part of his point: in a world full of people whose stories we may never know, who may or may not have urgent messages for us, Halliday seeks a style sad enough to describe those missed connections, and surprising enough to let us have fun with them, too. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Mark Halliday was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1949, and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina (until 1962) and then Westport, Connecticut. He earned a B.A. at Brown University in 1971, an M.A. in creative writing at Brown (1976), and a Ph.D. in English at Brandeis University (1983).