Inspired and informed by the music and urban landscape of New York City, Tongue & Groove employs jazzy and descriptive language in a sweep of city-life experiences and memories. A passionate rendering of incidents in spaces that include the subway, a school for the handicapped, and The Museum of Modern Art, Stephen Cramer employs richly sensual language and a wide range of imagery. Alluring portrayals of butterfly migrations, graffiti, and city buses complement this collection’s connection to the everyday hoots, shouts, and yammer of the streets.

--or you can open

your mouth & stick out

your tongue,

take that fugitive impulse

from the artist’s hand

straight into your very gut

& maybe find out along the way

if the lime-green

of that inverted roof

& the burnt almond

of the filling station’s

roadside grasses

live up to their names.

--from “Taste”

Stephen Cramer is the author of Shiva’s Drum and a National Poetry Series winner.