Jeff Newberry's interviewed by the Barn Owl Review, and he says:

I’ve also been reading Jake Adam York’s new book, A Murmuration of Starlings. Jake’s one of my favorite poets writing today. He does this whole “documentary lyric” thing that I find really cool.

Jeff is also giving mad props to some other righteous poets, Ed Pavlic included.

Gary L. McDowell's also there. I'm glad to see this sort of interview thing going on.

A friend just e-mailed me to ensure I hypered over to Ron Slate's blog to see the list he's compiled in an entry entitled "Twenty Poets Name Some New Favorites to Celebrate National Poetry Month." So I scroll down to this:

A Murmuration of Starlings by Jake Adam York (So. Illinois, 2008)
recommended by David Wojahn
York's notes to the volume state that it is "part of an ongoing project to elegize and memorialize the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement." The book proves worthy of its goal. It's a large and sweeping documentary poem in the tradition of Rukeyser's Book of the Dead and Reznikoff's Testimony, with a cast of characters ranging from Emmett Till to Sun Ra. Long poem projects along these lines often seem tethered to their "research" and end up smelling like a library carel—not so York's collection. His struggle with the benighted history of his native South is conveyed with great urgency, and with a terse concision that brings to mind the early work of Heaney. It's a book of unusual ambition and range. – DW

April is not the cruelest month. Not this time anyway. Thank you.

I don't know who wrote this, but so far this is the coolest review ever. I love the rating system (biceps! (I'm sure I'm supposed to know whose they are, but I don't)):

This is a fantastic book of poetry! His other book of poems, Murder Ballads was very good, but this one was great. The poems all centered around the civil rights movement. I loved how Mr. York used music in his poetry. These poems were beautiful and chilling at the same time. They were just perfect. Okay, enough gushing.

And thank you...

The first (?) review of A Murmuration of Starlings is online at The Yalobusha Review.

I had hoped someone would feel this way:

Laudably, the collection avoids oversimplifying the individual struggles of the Civil Rights Era, refusing the easy binaries of innocence and guilt, goodness and badness, self and other.

They came, late yesterday, and still it hardly seems real, ten shrink-wrapped copies, with more to follow.

Amazon's reporting "Temporarily out of stock," and I don't know if this means they're transitioning from "Will be released" to "In stock" or if (is it possible?) they've sold through their initial delivery... In any case, I know the folks at the Chicago Distribution Center are shipping them, so let me know if you're having trouble getting one. I'll have them in hand in Auburn and Gadsden and again at AWP in NYC, so if you're interested, let me know.

***

UPDATE (1/24): It's possible that the Chicago Distribution Center, which ships books right off the press may have sent every copy of Murmuration to my house in Denver.... No, but while books are shipping from Chicago, Amazon, for whatever reason, hasn't gotten theirs yet, it would seem. I'm hoping soon, however: I just got my first large order on Tuesday.... Thanks to everyone who's ordered one and is waiting patiently. If it gets too tight, let me know: I'll do my best to take care of you.