An elderly woman polishes her family dining table each day with painstaking care. A man receives a long lost letter from an uncle killed in the line of duty. A young child creates his own imaginative dialogue to 1950s television shows. Ramblings of a One-Eyed Garbage Man is Jim Hart’s collection of poetry that spans literary styles to capture an urban experience with profound social concern, sardonic wit, and a humorous perspective on the world that is certain to resonate with readers and thinkers everywhere. Processing the world around him in an original yet uncomplicated way, Hart crafts poems that are at once pure, sweet, and raw, availing of multiple forms of verse to forge unique concepts for the everyman. Born and raised in the 1950s in Brooklyn, New York, Hart explores topics that draw from a certain time and place in the urban American experience. The title of the collection is a nod to the poet’s own chosen profession as an employee of the New York City Sanitation Department. From the fallout of romantic love to the aftermath of war, these deeply personal, intimate takes on life, death, and much that lies in between are both achingly sad and playfully ironic. In some, such as “Leaps Of Faith” and “A Questionable Youth,” the poet shares snapshots of a Brooklyn childhood; in others, like “Greenwich Village – 1967” and “Acid Trip,” he recalls the confusing urban landscape of 1960s New York. Mining both treasured childhood times and the darker aspects of humanity, the collection converges as a stirring journey of heartbreak, family love, childhood, and coming of age. By casting a searching eye on the depths and heights of humanity, each work in Ramblings of a One-Eyed Garbage Man processes the past decades with fine perception, moral clarity, and palpable heart. Readers who value well-chosen words that are rich with life will treasure this graceful, enlightening collection.
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