“Peter Joseph Gloviczki’s short lyrics and prose poems speak to the contemporary reader, in tender, precise language, about love, the spirit, and the body, and while his poems may be short and concise, the scope of his work is without limit.”

“And what will the ricochet / of my right ankle be worth” asks the speaker in the opening lines of Peter Joseph Gloviczki’s first full- length collection, Kicking Gravity. This book finds the speaker traveling around the world and returning home with a newfound appreciation for life, love, the possibilities of the body and the landscapes that connect us. The speaker is a romantic and an explorer. From Budapest to London and New Orleans to the American Midwest, these poems listen with a journalist’s ear. Kicking Gravity is a passionate and fully formed debut.

Peter Joseph Gloviczki is a teacher, a communication researcher and a poet. His poems have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New Orleans Review, 32 Poems and elsewhere. Kicking Gravity is his first full-length collection of poems. He has reviewed poetry collections for Mid-American Review and his poems have been widely anthologized, including in Dogs Singing: A Tribute Anthology (Salmon Poetry, 2011). A Pushcart Prize nominee and the winner of a senryu prize from Modern Haiku, he grew up in Rochester, Minnesota, where he graduated from Mayo High School. He earned his B.A. at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. His research examines the implications of emerging technologies for journalism and mass communication. He lives and writes in Minneapolis.

And what will the ricochet 

of my right ankle be worth 

when all the scalpeled men 

rearrange this bony puzzle

in the window doubling, 

now, as a mirror: the person 

I was before I kicked gravity 

hard in the abdomen. Laugh,

babe, that’s what you told me 

on the night when I asked how 

I should answer those taller 

versions of yourself when they

appear between the boundaries 

of what that old architect let in 

when he said: Put it here,

yes, that’s it, now we are home.

There are no dogs outside, no men looking 

into Kenmores or Amanas. Trash cans

were emptied this morning, there is nothing,

just my shrill voice making high-pitched demands

about borrowing the car—the Blue Sebring

with the convertible top, to make Anne

blush. Her cheeks become cherries: fresh, ripe Bing, 

the kind that would have been painted by Rembrandt. 

Anne turns that cold Pepsi to sweet Riesling.

She sends Catholic school girls into a jealous rant.

Her hair tastes like lemonade and gin:

The kind of trouble all boys want to get in.

Copyright © Peter Joseph Gloviczki 2013