Description
Poetry. "Authorities say a man was stabbed to death, decapitated and partly cannibalized in what appears to be a random act of violence on board a bus that was en route to Winnipeg late Wednesday." With these starkly haunting words from a 2008 Canadian news report, Joseph Fasano begins VINCENT, a book-length poem based on Vince Li's killing of Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. Using a fictionalized first-person narrative from the perspective of the killer, Fasano explores the inner workings of a disturbed mind trying to come to terms with a horrific act that even its perpetrator cannot fully comprehend. "Have you smelled the rose oil / in the shoes of the dead... have you woken / and woken / and woken," the speaker asks us. And the poem will not let us say no.
Author Bio
Joseph Fasano is the author of five books of poetry including THE DARK HEART OF EVERY WILD THING (Platypus Press, 2020), THE CROSSING (Cider Press Review, 2018), VINCENT (Cider Press Review, 2018), INHERITANCE (Cider Press Review, 2014), and FUGUE FOR OTHER HANDS (Cider Press Review, 2013). He was born in New York state's Hudson River Valley and received degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University. His writing has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The Yale Review, American Poets, among other publications.
Author City: MIDDLETOWN, NY USA