Jason Baldinger

"Waiting on Hummingbirds, the latest dual poetry joint by Jason Baldinger and James Benger, is a bold and sympathetic meditation on the wrack, rumble, and backroad precariousness found in the protoplasm of American experience. A read I heartily recommend." -John Burroughs, 2022-2023 U. S. Beat Poet Laureate"In lyric poems and ballads, Benger and Baldinger pay homage to the gritty, black and white life of stuckness that plays out in single wides, 3rd shifts and temp work. Here, the king of childhood bites off the head of a mouse. The first Halloween costume is Dad's clothes and empty gunbelt, "There, you're a cowboy," heading into a "real neighborhood" of "a city-ordained septic tank/and mailboxes." This is tender witness of lower case saturdays and the slow passing of time when finally, "we start to look like our mothers/pre-dawn, lap full of guitar/metronome clicking 'til/a freight train derails/has anyone else noticed/the drop ceiling they installed in the sky?"-Karen Schubert, "author of The Compost Reader""Imagine yourself in the backseat of a beater, a sodium-lit highway, an overnight road trip with two friends whose stories are each more fluent, more deft and tender in turn. That gets to some of what I felt while reading Waiting on Hummingbirds. These profound, observant, humane poems occasionally shook me like rumble strips, startling with a suddenness of feeling, an exclamation of surprise. At the end of my reading, I returned to the first page and began again. The landscapes and lives Baldinger and Benger move through invite revisiting, hold out to us who may, ourselves, feel like strays, "an offering / a small good thing / to bring the rain." -Jennifer Browne, American Crow

"Jason Baldinger's American Aorta pulses like a midwestern road trip to the dustbowl, the soundtrack a steady thump of pavement and beating sun. You can smell the diesel and fast food on your fingers and in your clothes. "In a roadhouse/I order a gallon of sweet tea/a platter of catfish/let the air conditioner be my spine." Baldinger brings us to each new scene with largehearted compassion and tender observation. From "painkillers and double shift towns" and "for miss woodchopper" to "emphysema highways" and "bonnie parker heart", characters are sketched here from dust and rust, their souls on subtle display. This collection is a lifetime of travel and connection through the American rustbelt with gracious tribute at each stop, asking its readers to return, to savor the words like a slow sun laying itself wide at the edge of the sky. "After the speakeasy/stars pour molten metal/sparks of rustbelt towns/fade in a kansas city skyline... as the hours flash on/age plays tag with us." -Jonie McIntire, Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio (2022-2024), author Semidomesticated (1st edition, Red Flag Poetry 2020 chapbook contest winner; second edition Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2022)Jason Baldinger is a poet and photographer from Pittsburgh, PA. He's penned fifteen books of poetry, the newest of which include: A History of Backroads Misplaced: Selected Poems 2010-2020 (Kung Fu Treachery), and This Still Life (Kung Fu Treachery) with James Benger. His first book of photography, Lazarus, as well as two ekphrastic collaborations (with Rebecca Schumejda and Robert Dean)are forthcoming. His work has appeared across a wide variety of online sites and print journals. You can hear him read from his work on Bandcamp and on lps by The Gotobeds and Theremonster. His website can be found at jasonbaldinger.com

Jason Baldinger is a poet and photographer from Pittsburgh, PA. He's penned fifteen books of poetry the newest of which include: A History of Backroads Misplaced: Selected Poems 2010-2020 (Kung Fu Treachery), and This Still Life (Kung Fu Treachery) with James Benger. His first book of photography, Lazarus, as well as two ekphrastic collaborations (with Rebecca Schumejda and Robert Dean) are forthcoming. His work has appeared across a wide variety of online sites and print journals. You can hear him from various books on Bandcamp and on lps by The Gotobeds and Theremonster. His etsy shop can be found under the tag la belle riviere.

"The latest collaboration between Jason Baldinger and James Benger hits like perfect rock n' roll poetry dedicated to every bar regular who never thought anything of their thoughts and instead decided to light a cigarette. With images of winters too cold for human empathy and midwestern frustrations brought on because nothing wants to go right, Baldinger and Benger's latest is an excellent portrait of poetic working-class Americana. A fiery Whitman-esque yawp not meant for literary luminaries but for those who don't know how to define the fire within themselves." -Daniel W. Wright, author of Love Letters from the Underground"In This Still Life, Jason Baldinger & James Benger return for a third masterful collaboration with Baldinger sending out his calls like a lone bird in the Rust Belt, waiting for Benger's answer in the Midwest. Two unique voices studying this span where "we only live a handful of days", finding the beauty in struggle & loss through fine-tuned lenses as time & place are travelled, observed, & recorded for any who come across this collection of musings in the future. "All this is temporary", so let's make our way to the stream or ocean & enjoy this moment before we resurface." -Tim Heerdink, author of Somniloquy & Trauma in the Knottseau Well"Whether they're set in a factory, or thrift store, a woods or city sidewalk, the poems in This Still Life illustrate two simultaneous accounts of life in this USA. The poems converse and converge, often in cars or riverbanks-Benger: rivers flow in the unblemished sky/a sky that if you squint/and try real hard/will tell you/sweet air is still out there/just not here. Baldinger: I see a burial party/come to cover you in mud/while that rain brown river/never dredged safe/rages in a concrete bed. The poems here recount life's moments-ball games, nights out, car rides-as if ceremonial, the everyday made holy by virtue of attentiveness. Baldinger: this is the midwest/every road is a candlelit hex/every road is a crossroad drugstore/every road is a tattooed waitress/sleevedin an abandoned gas station. Benger: he thinks of the walnuts on grandpa's farm/how clean and pure they tasted/how precise/how delicate the procedure/of removing flesh from shell/how it never rained/or if it did/it wouldn't last." The world that Baldinger and Benger paint together is a world of reverence and nostalgia, of loyalty and reminiscence, where their eager brushstrokes of right now are forever water-colored with a mist of what once was." -Kerry Trautman, author of Artifacts and To Be Nonchalantly Alive"In This Still Life, Jason Baldinger and James Benger offer keen observations and reflections about struggle, nostalgia, and monotony as they take us through the junk pile of a collapsed world. This bold and effortless collaboration sheds a light on those picking through the pile, trying to make some sort of life from the rubble."-Cord Moreski, Author of The News Around Town, Host of The Couch Poets Collective

"In this collection of poems about temporary jobs, weak bosses, poor pay, and false choices, Jason Baldinger shows himself as a skilled poet of collapsible dreams. He is the ghost brother of David Lerner, another poet of bad luck litanies and fall down finesse. Baldinger offers his Pittsburgh heart, his verbal artistry, and his expansive presence. He offers characters who stubbornly keep driving even when there is no road ahead." -Mike James, author of Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor "Jason Baldinger's poetry is an artifact of a life richly lived with a keen awareness of the intersection of history, individual dreams, and an American realism of a country finally willing to assess itself seriously. Baldinger's America is one built on the backs of the labor of others, one where the payments only cover the interest and never touch the principal, and one where the class struggles of our grandparents are eternally present if you know where to look. The book you are holding in your hands is a new vision of Kerouac's dream of the recording angel." -Matt Ussia, author of The Red Glass Cat"In A History of Backroads Misplaced Jason Baldinger demonstrates his limitless wonder and unyielding weariness with our world almost immediately and the further you travel with him through these selected poems, the more you see how he intricately crosshatches the valleyed expanse between rugged and tender, how he reveals the vulnerable crick in his neck, how he fans out every shade of grey like a riverboat gambler throwing down a full house to the dismay of the rubes sitting at the table with him. " -Steve Brightman, author of The Circus of his Bones"In this gritty, neo-beat-spiritual collection, the poet is searching and scavenging for answers-is heaven really on the other side of the bar, is God's image found in the toilet water vomit reflection, how many hymns does it take? Whatever the answer, listen to the big voice (that resembles your mother's) behind these poems: go home, clean yourself up, and saunter along again under the big blue sky tomorrow."-Linzi Garcia, author of Thank You"In a history of backroads misplaced Jason Baldinger takes us on journeys along the backroads and highways ofAmerica, as well as deep within his hometown of Pittsburgh. Spending time in neighborhood bars, diners, and shit jobs, Baldinger doesn't just pass through a place, he inhabits it in a way few travelers do with language both precise andrelaxed. It is a gift he shares with us in this generous volume." -M. J. Arcangelini, author of A Quiet Ghost

Jason Baldinger is from Pittsburgh and misses roaming the country writing poems. His newest book is A Threadbare Universe (Kung Fu Treachery Press). Forthcoming books include The Afterlife is a Hangover (Stubborn Mule Press) and A History of Backroads Misplaced (Kung Fu Treachery). His work has been published widely across print journals and online. You can hear him read his work on Bandcamp and on lp's by The Gotobeds and Theremonster. Damian Rucci is the author of 5 chapbook of poetry including Corrupt the Youth by Between Shadows Press. His work has been featured across the internet and in print. He is a founding member of the Nu Profits of Poetic Dischord, a beer guzzling bard, and probably banned from your local bar. Shawn Pavey is the author of Talking to Shadows (Main Street Rag Press, 2008), Nobody Steals the Towels From a Motel 6 (Spartan Press, 2015), and Survival Tips for the Pending Apocalypse (2019, Spartan Press) which was 1st runner up for the 2020 Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award. He co-founded The Main Street Rag Literary Journal and served as an Associate Editor. His infrequently updated blog is at www.shawnpavey.com. His books can be purchased from him signed and/or personalized at https: //shawn-pavey-poet.square.site/ or wherever one prefers to buy books online). Nathanael William Stolte hails from Buffalo, NY where he spent the pandemic taking shelter in his mother's basement convalescing from a summer heart attack. He did not spend that time wisely. His poems have appeared in various digital and print journals and magazines. He is the author of several chapbooks and Shoot the Alligators Closest to the Boat (Stubborn Mule, 2019) & Beggar's Songbook (Spartan Press, 2020). Stolte is a sober alcoholic, flower-punk, madcap poet. He replies to emails at [email protected]

Jason Baldinger is a poet from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A former Writer in Residence at Osage Arts Community, he is co-founder and co-director of The Bridge Series. He has multiple books available including The Better Angels of our Nature (Kung Fu Treachery) and Everyone's Alone Tonight with James Benger (Kung Fu Treachery Press) as well as the chapbook Blind Into Leaving (Analog Submission Press). His work has been published widely in print journals and online. You can listen to him read his work on Bandcamp and on lps by the bands Theremonster, and The Gotobeds. Nell Hendricks is a multimedia artist born and living in Pitts- burgh, PA. She works primarily in a knit medium, making 3-dimensional conceptual sculptures dealing with the sub- jects of trauma, grief, and mental illness. After attending Ty- ler School of Art studying printmaking for a few semesters, she dropped out following her dad's passing to pursue her own work. This is her rst published work.

The thing that gets me about Jason Baldinger's work is this: despite being wildly prolific, it's these poems. The poems get better, get tighter, get more honest. It's not always going to be a pretty picture, but Baldinger - especially here in A Threadbare Universe - draws you in with each first line, creates a little world where we get to look through his eyes while he wields language like it's music; syncopated rhythms, the skillful repetition of assonance and consonance, a sprinkling of slant and internal rhyme give these poems structures in which they dance. These poems have grit and they bite and they leave you speechless at the sheer miracle of being alive on a sunny day, barreling down the road, shaking the city dust and hustling for cash weariness in the winds of the Great Plains. Shawn PaveyAuthor of Survival Tips for the Pending ApocalypseIn Jason Baldinger's latest book, "A Threadbare Universe" he takes you on a whirlwind ride to hell and back. The poems travel through forgotten towns where the unemployment check is a relic from another time. They take you on journeys from Pittsburgh to Evansville, Indiana, moving further along through Kentucky to the middle of Kansas. And within the desolation, little sparks of light throw out signals from this stellar poem: "The streets are empty" -we look for heroes to save this never democracy / Christianity and Hollywood led us astray. And the positive; a redemption of the new madness that haunts our each and every step hits us in this final line: we can stop this / we have to fill the streets. A powerful book that begs to be read. Richard D. HouffAuthor, journalist, and former editor of Heeltap MagazineJason Baldinger's writing is an example of the best American poetry today. A Threadbare Universe takes America's temperature and awakens us. It's a poignant call from complacency, a brilliant rendition, breathtaking in its solace and lament. Jyl AnaisAuthor of Soft Out SpokenBeneath the blue collar of Baldinger's poems lies dirt, nostalgia, a sweet solitude built of both victory and sadness. To read is to ride shotgun with road map an unfolded wreckage with America hungover in the backseat. Every stop to stretch legs and take a piss is colored by working blues and morning afters. There is coming-of-age, and there is coming to terms--this collection of work exquisitely calls forth the latter. Nikki AllenPoet

"Jason Baldinger and James Benger's Little Fires Hiding offers glances into alternate realities, into what might have been, not only for Baldinger and Benger, but the assortment of working class characters who occupy their world. To use a phrase from one of Baldinger's pieces in the collection, they are birds who've contemplated the higher branches of the tree, probably more than a few times. Like many of us, they never quite get there, but their poems do, and like the sunlight, they cast a certain amount of beauty on the respective cities that these these two gifted poets, choose, quite happily, to call home and even though they're separated by many miles, they come together seamlessly." --John Dorsey, Author of Damsels in Detroit