"Kevin Ridgeway has a hammer in his soul and he uses it to bang out hard truths dealing with a broken childhood, staggered adulthood, psych ward stays, bleak street scenes, lessons in sin from a soon to be incarcerated father, a desperate mother failing to leave behind the man who always continues to break her heart. All this Ridgeway lays out with lines flying down the page, perhaps the only way such nightmare hours should be recorded. We all know the world is a chaotic ride. This book won't necessarily help you figure out how to better maneuver through it, but it will make you come alive with wider eyes, sharper vision. Reading Ridgeway is a pleasure born of pain. The world within these pages, forged in the language of scars, is well worth falling into."

Michael Flanagan

Author of, Days Like These

and, A Million Years Gone

"Kevin Ridgeway's work bubbles with pain, humor, terror, and love. Invasion of the Shadow People is not simply a collection of poems-but rather a beating heart that will not be stopped."

--Mathieu Cailler, author of the poetry collections May I Have This Dance and Catacombs of the Heart