Poetry. THE PASSION OF PHINEAS GAGE & SELECTED POEMS presents the best of Jesse Glass’ experimental writing in a single volume. Glass’ ground-breaking work has been hailed by poets as diverse as Jerome Rothenberg, William Bronk and Jim Daniels for its insight into human nature and its exploration of forms. Glass uses the tools of post-modernism: collaging, fragmentation, and Oulipo-like processes along with a keen understanding of poetic forms and traditions that stretches back to Beowulf and beyond. Moreover, Glass finds his subject matter in larger than life figures like Phineas Gage-the man whose life was changed in an instant when an iron bar was sent rocketing through his brain in a freak accident. The product of over 30 years of engagement with the avant-garde, THE PASSION OF PHINEAS GAGE & SELECTED POEMS is the work of a mature poet who continues to reinvent himself with every text he produces.

A native of Carroll County, Maryland, Jesse Glass now makes his home in Tokyo, where he teaches American literature and history at Meikai (Bright Sea) University. His books include LOST POET: FOUR PLAYS BY JESSE GLASS (BlazeVOX Books, 2010), Gaha Noas Zorge (New Sins Press, 2009), and THE PASSION OF PHINEAS GAGE & SELECTED POEMS (Ahadada Books/West House Books, 2006). Praised by Geraldine Monk, Jerome Rothenberg, Michael Heller, William Bronk, and other major voices of contemporary experimental poetry, Glass is an internationally acclaimed performer of his own work and features prominently at PennSound, Ubu Web, and in dozens of other anthologies and magazines devoted to “the sweet science.” He is currently developing a puppetry and poetry theater with the aid of his students. Glass’s literary manuscripts are archived in Special Collections at the University of Maryland Libraries, College Park and ten of his handmade, painted books are in the collection of the Tate Gallery, London.

Published by Ahadada Books/West House Books.