National Network for Equitable Library Service

“I was only born into the world,” begins one of Vincent Colistro’s poems, “didn’t invade it, didn’t ransom it for a nicer one.” Late Victorians, Colistro’s debut, is a beguilingly irreverent investigation of the life he was “born into.” Hyper-fluent, riding wave after wave of copious invention, Colistro builds his weirdness from scratch, turning simple ideas into sense-resisting parables full of deranged twists and dizzying embellishments. (“We Rick-rolled, we raised / pre-flop, we flapped our pool noodles / at each other’s caboose.”) Wily, witty and packed with brilliant sleights of hand, Late Victorians announces an original talent. “Late Victorians re-sets the machinery. The voice here is way beyond chatter; these narratives arrive cock-eyed because they take place just adjacent to life's usual misery. Vincent Colistro's poems have things to tell us, slantwise, manic, wry, desperate, dishevelled, and stylish.” –Ken Babstock, author of On Malice “Dashing and brilliant, Vincent Colistro's Late Victorians is an unforgettable book of poetry about leaving youth behind to assemble a complete, fortified rhetoric full of catchy riffs and hilarious, precise revelations.” –David McGimpsey, author of Asbestos Heights