About this ebook
Michael Adubato, being a man of many talents and experiences, perceives the world through a compassionate and undeceived lens. Writing in vers libre, the common language of his work justifies more than a single reading. Abubato's free verse poems are mostly lighter and observatory in tone, but can range from harsh objectivity to darker humour. Having travelled extensively, a notebook his companion, he brings these experiences to his literary endeavours. Born and raised in New Jersey, this American poet now resides in Belgium.
"In these poems, Adubato takes his readers on a journey around neighborhoods and across continents. Over meals with friends made throughout his travels, and through the sights and sounds he encounters as he explores destinations brand new and familiar, these poems stir all of our senses and encourage us to embark on our own excursions at home or abroad. This eclectic collection turns our negative response to "Missing the Exit" into one of the highlights of the trip."
--Lynne McEniry, poet and author of some other wet landscape
"MICHAEL ADUBATO's poems are those of the intelligent, alert poet who experiences and perceives the world around him with a compassionate and undeceived sensibility. As a former soldier, engaged in enabling the armed forces of different countries to communicate with each other in a common language his poems can range from harsh observation, to military black humour. However, most of the poems are lighter in tone than these two quotations with John Ashbery, the Beats, Charles Bukowski, Robert Frost, Frank O'Hara and Patti Smith registering stylistically in well-written free verse which bears reading more than once. They have been culled from Adubato's notebook kept during his travels and sometimes there are lines that remain in the mind through their disturbing originality."
-- James Sutherland-Smith, poet and author of The River and the Black Cat
Michael Adubato
Michael Adubato, born and raised in New Jersey, USA, is a poet and writer who works for NATO, although not in a poetic capacity. Living in Belgium, where he settled after his military career, he travels extensively for both work and pleasure. His poetry has previously been published in Ariel Chart (where he was nominated for Best of the Net in 2020 for To Soignies Station), The Piker Press, The Dope Fiend Daily and most recently The Indian Periodical. One of his passions is soccer and he writes about this constantly on the Yanks Abroad webpage (www.yanks-abroad.co).
Related to Missing the Exit
Related ebooks
The Harvest Tunes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStudies of Contemporary Poets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoetry Treasures Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnknown Places Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLet There Be Rain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDisorderly Magic and Other Disturbances Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsepochs of morning light: prose poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTraveling Salesman's Son Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHai[Na]Ku and Other Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Best Canadian Poetry 2021 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Poems of Yone Noguchi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Be Happy Though Human: New and Selected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWordwaves: Poems with Haiku Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hour Between Dog and Wolf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5L' Heure Bleue Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDream in a Suitcase: The Story of an Immigrant Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsthe Stuffed Owl Returns: Newly Collected Poetical Mishaps and Absurdities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBook of Places: 10th Anniversary Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSilhouettes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEugene Onegin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwenty-Nine Goodbyes: An Introduction to Chinese Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConversations before Silence: The selected poetry of Oles Ilchenko Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLa Batarde Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sands of Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSymphonies of Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Would Define the Sun: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeginnings: Selected Verse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lady and the Little Fox Fur Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Poetry For You
Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun and Her Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pillow Thoughts II: Healing the Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Waste Land and Other Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Missing the Exit
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Missing the Exit - Michael Adubato
Foreword
I had known Michael Adubato first as a friend and colleague before I became acquainted with him as a poet, with a history of unpublished poems scattered across countless notebooks. At the time I had the pleasure of reading his work for the first time, I was the senior editor of the Ariel Chart literary journal. I accepted a few of his poems for publication, and appreciating their quality, Editor-in-Chief accepted a few more. This initial publication gave Adubato an impetus to organize his poetry in a collection of poems, unified around the leitmotif of travel, because most of the selected poems were written during moments of his exploring new cities and sites, or returning to marvel anew at the old ones.
For Adubato, travel is as essential as writing, for he doesn’t know "how not to write," or for that matter, not to yearn for travel. His striving to transmute observed life’s moments into verses is coupled with his burning need to visit new places, for he feels compelled to discover the world, learn about it and become familiar with the creations of both man and nature. "Home is nice," he says in a poem, but you cannot really live and learn and discover in a familiar and confined space.
His verses are a reflection of what he sees during his travels, what he feels and thinks while enwrapped in the solitude of contemplation in a European café, in a New Jersey Dunkin Donuts shop, on the slope of a mountain, or inside some ancient ruins, or a bookstore. By exploring the spaces without, he is inspired to mine the places within his interiority.
In free verse, Adubato skillfully captures the ambiance of ordinary moments. He views the mundane and ordinary through the poetic lens of the extraordinary. Because there are wonders hidden in everyday scenery and experiences, such as those in one’s kitchen during the turkey roasting for Thanksgiving, or while making waffles with maple syrup
. His poem Lisbon exemplifies his style, which is unaffected and devoid of any poetic pomposity and arresting in its deceptively innocent depiction of life, because the simplicity of the lines, today, we’ll walk those hills, ride those trams...as we ignore the passing of our lives,
is threaded with a deeper reflection on life’s transience. Such simplicity makes Adubato’s poetry accessible to all readers, who need not delve into excessive symbolism or heavy metaphorical language.
Adubato’s poetry is not focused