Synopses & Reviews
In Wolf Doctors, Russ Woods' first full-length collection of poetry, we find cities that have transformed into girls, but who perhaps would like to transform back once again into cities. We find lovers in a forehead-shaped grove, next to a forehead-shaped lake, touching their foreheads together, endlessly. We find rampaging herds of bulls that desperately love that which they trample to death.
Russ Woods lives in Chicago. He is the author of nine chapbooks, most recently Warm Morning (The New Megaphone, 2014). His poetry and collaborations have been published in magazines like Diagram, The Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, Guernica, Pank, Barrelhouse, Dusie, Sixth Finch, and Columbia Poetry Review.
Review
Russ Woods is a writer of the moment. His words are alive; each piece masterfully straddles the line between prose and poetry. I dare your heart not to race faster and faster with each turning page. And when you're done reading this book, you can use it to prop up your gaping jaw.”
Lindsay Hunter, author of Dont Kiss Me and Daddys
"You know when youre reading a book and you recall a strange moment from childhood, one hiding in you you hadnt looked at in years? You were at the grocery store with your mother, browsing produce under the cold fluorescents, staring at prices, when you, your mom, everyone else in there felt a tug, from nowhere, and another, and were snagged into the quickening of time and flung into each other, into shelves, through walls, flying out into the sunlight; glad, together, wearing the names of pets
This is Wolf Doctors, and it is a true joy."
Donald Dunbar, author of Eyelid Lick
"Russ Woods pulls off good tricks in these prose-y poemish things, like when he addresses the people who arent reading them, or when he calls one a writing prompt and then tell you its a poem, or when a poem is sponsored by Red Bull. But what sends me reeling is what a great writer he is. With all the oddities and uncanny ideas, this book would be strange indeedif it wasnt so impeccably composed, so cohesive in the way its arranged, and in how everything bounces off each other, how it all makes sense of whats senseless. Wolf Doctors is an easy book to be enthusiastic about."
Adam Robinson, editor of Publishing Genius
Russ Woods is a jewel hotel when it comes to the impossible account of the individual thrill. Give him a sentence, and he'll build a monument made out of dissolvable grocery lists. Give him a word, and he'll make it adventurous and personal. No, listen to me! I'm not just a traffic cop! Russ Woods knows what it means to witness your own wilderness. Out Loud. On The Page. Through Others That You Love. Through Others That You Don't. I think this is what is at stake here: What's expected in this S U R R E A L experience and WHAT IS NEVER EXPECTED. "My physics is immaculate but / that doesnt matter here its just tacos tacos./ Just these sweaty children crying dude / shut up about the sun." The idea that the s u r r e a l experience can NOT be surprising is new, but the idea of coming back to the poem as yourself / beautiful, regardless, is crucifixion. It is celebration. It is, in Wolf Doctors, resurrection or kissing, which has always been a combination of alltwothings.”
Carrie Lorig, author of NODS
"Russ Woods stretches his poems like skins over the framework of the modern worldRed Bull bones and Internet veins underneath. But these poems are bigger than the now we live in. They stretch and yearn and grown and WANT, these sharp little gems, and then they look back at themselves and laugh, with all the humility and surprise that marks the very best kind of poetry."
Amber Sparks, author of May We Shed These Human Bodies and The Desert Places
"Russ Woods travels between the fantastic, the blissed and the corner convenience store, attaining strangeness and beauty from each. And beneath the fun and fires and parties and skewed formalism of these poems there is the looking at the world, being willing to look every time anew at the ever-new world, so feral and amazing and unexplainable. Wolf Doctors is a vehicle, the cruising Buick you cant stop watching, the Buick I want to take a ride in every day for the rest of everything."
Mathias Svalina, author of Destruction Myth, I Am a Very Productive Entrepreneur and The Explosions
Synopsis
Experimental poetry by Chicago based musician and artist, Russ Woods.
Synopsis
In Russ Woods's first collection of poetry, cities have transformed into girls, and rampaging herds of bulls desperately love that which they trample.
Russ Woods edits Love Symbol Press and is the author of the chapbooks Tiny People and Pictures of Salukis Looking Majestic.
Synopsis
In Wolf Doctors, Russ Woods' first full-length collection of poetry, we find cities that have transformed into girls, but who perhaps would like to transform back once again into cities. We find lovers in a forehead-shaped grove, next to a forehead-shaped lake, touching their foreheads together, endlessly. We find rampaging herds of bulls that desperately love that which they trample to death.
About the Author
Russ Woods: Russ Woods is a poet, musician, and librarian living in Chicago. He has recorded and toured with the musical projects Tinyfolk and Pretty Swans. He edited Love Symbol Press and was a founding editor of the online literary journal
Red Lightbulbs. He is the author of the chapbooks
Tiny People, Pictures of Salukis Looking Majestic, and
Love Stories/Hate Stories (with Brett Elizabeth Jenkins).