The Longing of the Optic Nerve

In the tradition of Russell Edson, with a touch of Raymond Chandler, Goeckel wryly reports on the world through a unique, surrealistic lens. His keenly observed prose poems, shaped like newspaper clippings, might land you in a seedy hotel reeking noir and contemplating killing a pimp "not for love ... but for the way he licked chicken grease from his fingers," or in suburbia frantically listening to a 911 recording say "Ah, you complain too much." Whether its Kansas "with the melody blown out of it" or a fugitive cowboy's eyes "shining like clean windows with the desert behind them", Goeckel summons cinematic scenes that make you laugh and marvel at these compelling vignettes from a highly imaginative mind.

In The Longing of the Optic Nerve, hard-boiled surrealist Larry Goeckle has produced a masterpiece that at first glance resembles a museum filled with artifacts and curiosities from a vast array of epochs, regions, and artforms, but upon a second, closer reading reveals a museum within each poem, inner and outer worlds so seamlessly fused and alive that you'll never look at your neighbor the same way again, the poet having so quietly and effectively insinuated himself into your psyche that he could be living next door to you, which is when it occurs to you that you're in the book, too, preserved and catalogued for the rest of time." -Daniel Mueller, author of How Animals Mate and Nights Dreamed of Hubert Humphrey.

Larry Goeckel's poetry explores a variety of registers that blur the line between poetry & prose. He narrates in a way that both plays with & advances a hard-edged lyricism of the American West, surprising at each turn." -John Tritica, poet, critic and co-founder, of L)Edge, a poetry circle.

Larry Goeckel's compelling poetry startles at every turn and resonates. His work has a deep sense of place woven with threads of film noir to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Goeckel's surreal vision captures a unique angle on the world.-Diane Thiel, poet, author and English Professor, University of New Mexico. Larry fishes for true stories to be handled like a precious vase on which soldiers straggle in their boots, drunk with love for any black-haired woman who has killed her husband.-Gene Frumkin, (1928-2007) American poet, Professor and author of 17 books.

Take in these poems slowly, let them work their way into your system as if they are a rare expensive meal cooked to perfection.-Don McIver, KUNM Freeform DJ, editor of A Bigger Boat: the Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Slam Scene.