Enter the dark and twisted world of G.R. Tomaini, a contemporary Poet, Philosopher, Systematic Theologian, and author of nine books who explores the depths of human depravity, despair, and decadence. In The Psalms of Babylon, you will find 112 Flowers of Malaise that will shock, disturb, and fascinate you. You will encounter seductive sirens, hungry hogs, unholy grins, and laughing gas. You will visit opium dens, woodchippers, bathtubs, and tombs. You will witness sin, surf, seance, and soliloquy. You will experience asphyxiation, jouissance, Ragnarok, and metanoia.
The Psalms of Babylon are not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It is a book that challenges, provokes, and entertains. It is a book that reveals the dark side of the human soul and the sadistic beauty of poetic language. It is a book that will make you think, feel, and wonder.
If you love Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Franz Kafka, Sylvia Plath, or Allen Ginsberg, then you will love
The Psalms of Babylon. If you want something new, original, and daring, then you will love
The Psalms of Babylon. Lastly, If you are ready to embark on a journey into Oblivion itself, you will love
The Psalms of Babylon.Reviews"These poems are criminally energetic in their ecstasy and despair. What we have is a mash-up of Christianity and
The Flowers of Evil. Jesus makes his cameo appearances, but Baudelaire is always around. The poems move fast! Because G.R. Tomaini has a wide-ranging intellect, he can stand at his own personal pinball table with forty balls in play at the same time among the crazy flippers of sin, grace, failure, sex, death, bitterness, and love. No matter where they end up, the balls all bounce off the boards of Malaise and Joy. The poems, many of them haikus, look to heaven as they channel the great, syphilitic French transgressor but also point to Emily Dickinson in their frantic departures from regular syntax and punctuation. G.R. Tomaini's collection is startling, strange, passionate, and unpredictable. He is a poet to watch in the years ahead."
- John Foy, Morningside Poetry Series Coordinator, New York City "G.R. Tomaini is that rare thing these days, a poet-philosopher with critical intelligence and an open mind."
- David M. Katz "These sharp poems can be read as psycho-philosophical lessons, for the practice of change."
- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, translator of Songs for Kali "In the enigmatic realm of contemporary verse, G.R. Tomaini stands as an American Goethe, weaving the tapestry of modern life with poetic finesse." -
Cody Sexton, Managing Editor at A Thin Slice of Anxiety and founder of Anxiety Press
