Cover Charge

I love the New York that Linda Kleinbub brings to life in her poetry collection, COVER CHARGE. Kleinbub is clear-eyed and unsentimental, as any long-term Gothamite must be, playing guide and witness to decades of grit, glamor, and ever-changing scenes. Evocative in her imagery and compelling in her pacing, Kleinbub lays out a life in glimpse and shards, not like a tour guide with an urge to explain, but like a cool older sister who lets you tag along as she gets into all the coolest places. For a debut collection, Cover Charge is unusually grounded. This is a book to be savored.

-Jason Schneiderman-author of Hold Me Tight

"As publisher of Rimes of The Ancient Mariner Silver Tongued Devil Anthology: Celebrating five years of outstanding East Village poetry, fiction, memoirs, essays, storytelling, humor, and spoken word, Linda Kleinbub has not only been around downtown but has embraced the informal savvy-quirky spirit of generosity that is New York. Her first book of poems, Cover Charge, maps out dues paid under 'purple galaxies' or in wishful gardens where blessings, if blurry, are bountiful. In the poem, Visibility Unclear, 'fissures of logic' manage to 'avoid tripping over cats' and in the poem 'Fire Burn- ing, ' 'Orion's stars drift/ penniless across a/ quartz-colored sky.' Brimming colors mix and match, jiggle vitality. Kleinbub, lyrical, sensual, sober, has arrived, and she's brought with her Pink Trees Press." - Star Black, author of The Popular Vote

Here is a poet on the move, penning epiphanies as she spins from innocence to experience. Heartbreak jousts with joy. Lovers switch from villainous to valiant. Muse-driven tailspin jewels offer salvation. Lace-textured dialogues with the universe interact with deftly-rendered metaphoric reveries. Inventive and seductive-these poems are written in lighter fluid "... wild with guilt." They're ready for a match. Stand back. Pyromantic on the loose!

-Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, author of Party Everywhere

"In its imagery, its phrasing, and its probing of our inner selves, Cover Charge is truly impressive. Only Linda Kleinbub can make the dirt in a vegetable garden filled with eggplants and praying mantises seem seductive." - R. Bremner, author of Hungry Words