When Kerosene's Involved

In his foreword, Sebastian Matthews says, "Daniel Romo was born to write prose poems." We couldn't agree more. We might even say Romo is the most engaging and imaginative prose poet writing today. But we'll let you decide. This incendiary book of poems burns through contemporary American life with wry fire and scorching wit, and through it the poet has created an important edition: one in which he reinvents his craft and transitions into an insurgent, precise, and quotable future. Mojave River Press is proud to present this collection of new and revised prose poems by a nascent master. Praise for WHEN KEROSENE’S INVOLVED: "The prose poems in Daniel Romo’s debut collection read like trees and trees of scorched photographs: hot, fragmented, and alive like leaves. Walking through this strange forest is the poet on fire asking, “What if there is no heaven?” Asking, “Why?” Asking for prayer, and surrender, and the faces in the ash to come back all at once. These poems shake like a world up in smoke, and mourning for beauty." —Sabrina Orah Mark "Daniel Romo knows the intrinsic mutability of all things, and especially those things that go bump in a poem. Whether asking me out on a date or setting fire to all of the available niceties, he’s the prose poemist with the mostest, the fabulous and daring new voice of an old soul." —Alan Michael Parker

In his foreword, Sebastian Matthews says, "Daniel Romo was born to write prose poems." We couldn't agree more. We might even say Romo is the most engaging and imaginative prose poet writing today. But we'll let you decide. This incendiary book of poems burns through contemporary American life with wry fire and scorching wit, and through it the poet has created an important edition: one in which he reinvents his craft and transitions into an insurgent, precise, and quotable future. Mojave River Press is proud to present this collection of new and revised prose poems by a nascent master. Praise for WHEN KEROSENE’S INVOLVED: "The prose poems in Daniel Romo’s debut collection read like trees and trees of scorched photographs: hot, fragmented, and alive like leaves. Walking through this strange forest is the poet on fire asking, “What if there is no heaven?” Asking, “Why?” Asking for prayer, and surrender, and the faces in the ash to come back all at once. These poems shake like a world up in smoke, and mourning for beauty." —Sabrina Orah Mark "Daniel Romo knows the intrinsic mutability of all things, and especially those things that go bump in a poem. Whether asking me out on a date or setting fire to all of the available niceties, he’s the prose poemist with the mostest, the fabulous and daring new voice of an old soul." —Alan Michael Parker "These are movements of small and epic scales compressed into this basic space of a page. One poem tells us 'You make me want to vomit a bouquet of begonias.' These poems are the act of retching. Supremely precise, Romo takes his small spaces on many voyages, steering clear of well-trodden paths of mourning to find his own. Instead, 'Self-doubt is an algorithm misapplied.' The algorithm here is one determining a course you want to take, even if no one told you to. We are telling you to." —ILK Journal "Daniel Romo’s collection of prose poems comes at you, a spontaneous combustion. Each poem a blaze, an inferno, registering its signature impression. A necessary and unique voice in contemporary poetry ... his language is fresh and at times surprising, but always memorable … a cohesive modern collection." —Thrush Poetry Journal "Laden with brilliant imagery, alliteration, and consonance, this collection lights a fire that never quite extinguishes itself." — Sundog Lit

DANIEL ROMO is the author of Romancing Gravity (Silver Birch Press, 2013). His poetry can be found in The Los Angeles Review, Gargoyle, MiPOesias, and elsewhere. He teaches English and creative writing, and is the Poetry Editor for Cease, Cows. He lives in Long Beach, CA and at danielromo.net.