Author Description

From the Kirkus Review: "Andrew Ladd's 'What is Man? A Poet's Blog' is a wild, oft irreverent group of poems that explore the 21st century American gestalt. The main group of poems "What is Man?" is a takeoff on the New York Times comments pages, imagined as if poets from every walk of life weighed in on the question. As each poem explores the topic of humankind from different points of view, there is much of the carnivalesque in the unfolding, as if Chaucer's pilgrims all at once decided to join in on the poetic blog. Two other chapters, "Topical Depressions" and "They Had it Coming" are wide-ranging expressions of the poet's sharp wit pointed directly at deserving targets of our times...."The sad truth of modern era poetry is that it lost its audience. Poets today compose in an echo chamber of other poets, who all tend to be teaching in academia, working for tenure, and writing for each other. Ladd's poetry reminds us that poetry need not be so arcane. Funny, accessible, readable, Ladd's poems are unlike any of his contemporaries. He rhymes, uses traditional forms, and writes to entertain as much as anything else. A tortured look into the poet's soul this is not."