“Because writing and drinking go hand in hand,  it may seem an impossible challenge for a poet to offer new perspective of this well-worn, symbiotic relationship.  But Hosho McCreesh does, and in his brilliant collection “A Deep and Gorgeous Thirst” he uses subject matter that might feel old and tired in the hands of a less capable poet and turns out poem after poem as exciting and irresistible as the first flush of new desire.”

““A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst” is a sweeping collection that is, on the surface, about booze and bars and drinking a lot, something the speakers in Hosho’s poems know something about. But what’s beneath the surface is what counts. The people in these sly, funny, often heartbreaking poems know that a bar is never just a bar, a drink is never just a drink. These are poems about being human, the heartbreak and joy and horror of all that. McCreesh – like Joseph Mitchell (see McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon), John Fante (Brotherhood of the Grape), and of course Charles Bukowski – knows that the truth comes up when illusions of control come down.”

“It’s not that there’s no pain in these poems. The loss of a close friend haunts the narrator and and he’s filled with regret about all that he’s missed, but it’s a relief to have someone write an extended ode to booze like this. It’s not about the narrator’s life going down the crapper. It’s about love, about the wonder and mystery of drunkenness, and it gets it right. Sure, I’ve had some dark days under the bottle – and so does the narrator – but mostly drinking is about joy and hope and communion.
A Deep & Gorgeous Thirst is a beautiful book about something we too often see portrayed as the source of all bad luck and trouble. It’s goddamn uplifting. Now, fuck it, I’m going to the bar and I’m bringing these poems with me and I’m letting them sing straight to my drunken heart.
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