Old White Straight Male In Gray Overalls

In this book of utterly politically incorrect so-called "poems," performance artist, activist, and cultural phenomenon unto himself Milan Kohout takes the reader on a journey from the steel mills of communist Czechoslovakia to the "fake-leftist" streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, pausing to inhale only so that he can unleash more vituperative sentences attacking hypocrisy wherever he encounters it. Kohout, who was imprisoned for his art and poetry; who was arrested by the secret police and expelled from his native country; and who immigrated to the U.S. after being granted political asylum, does not shy away from being offensive, tender, volatile, empathetic, cantankerous, or even prosaic. Contradictions and catastrophes hidden from view in the details of American life are laid bare with the simplicity of a linguistic surgical incision. With poignancy, polemic, and humor - and without the obscure, flowery language that some may associate with the genre of "poetry" - Kohout reveals the raw flavors of injustice and absurdity that season the American "melting pot."