Critical Praise for No Both
By Michael Gizzi

Through the mad clutter of everyday life the poet's voice speeds along and isn't going to let you off the hook till the end of the poem, if then. Razor sharp but also rich and generously compelling, Michael Gizzi's poetry lambastes as it celebrates, bringing us finally to a place of poignant irresolution where "This music that for the moment/Takes on the work of youth" is "Held for life in fluttering devastation."
­ John Ashbery

Cross James Joyce and Jack Nicholson in a high energy construct machine and you have Michael Gizzi's poems. He will tell you everything you knew was true but didn't have the guts to say. Physiologically, psychologically,and geographically, Gizzi locates the voices of us, Olson's "last first people," with an element of quick surprise that is all his own.
­ Lisa Jarnot

In the hyperbolic vernacular of the barroom confessional, Michael Gizzi delivers a full bag of urgent messages, their sources detached from the old, weird America of a not-so-distant past. Impossibly rich, these jam-packed audibles are spring-loaded to jack-knife off the page. No Both is word jazz, coiled, mortal and alive.
­ Kit Robinson

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