Acclaim for On Freeing Myself From A Full Nelson Hold, and other sonnets

"Unassailable craftsmanship ... a voice like no one else's! "

                            -Jennifer Reeser, author of An Alabaster Flask and Winterproof, winner of the Word Press First Book Prize, and translator of Baudelaire and of Akhmatova.

"The finest of Paul Bussan's sonnets are in a class by themselves: pointed, incisive, richly musical and well wrought."

                            - X.J. Kennedy, poet, author of Nude Descending a Staircase, and winner of the Lamont Award of the Academy of American Poets.

"You have given me a treasury of sonnets to draw upon."

                            -Les Murray, poet and winner of the T.S. Eliot Award

"...a wonderful collection of excellent poems...(with) variety in voices, tones, and moods...and fine use of near rhyme. "

                            - Writer's Digest

"Wide ranging...speaking of everything from the death of Lord Nelson to the complex theories of Albert Eisntein, Paul Busssan's follow up to the acclaimed A Rage Of Intelligence , On Freeing Myself From A Full Nelson Hold and other sonnets is just as good as his first, offering variance for poetry lovers to chew on, crafting vivid imagery and lyrical goodness from page to page which will grip the reader from the first and hold them there until the very last one. On Freeing Myself From A Full Nelson Hold, and other sonnets is enthusiastically recommended for those who enjoyed A Rage Of Intelligence as well as poetry fanatics everywhere, and for community library shelves abroad."

                              -Small Press Bookwatch/ The Midwest Book Review, 05/08

Acclaim for A Rage of Intelligence

“The debut work of Paul Bussan, A Rage Of Intelligence is an impressive work of poetry offering brief yet impressionable free-verse selections that leave an indelible imagery upon the mind’s eye. Describing small aspects of life and fleeting moments in a way to bring the transcendental out of the mundane, this work is highly recommended.

                             - Internet Bookwatch/The Midwest Book Review, 09/2003

“fresh thinking” ...an unusually good book of poems” ...edgy, salty, caustic brand of wit and cleverness” ...[a] tough, hard driving voice...complex and not easily given to a simple...reading”

                              - Writer's Digest

“These are poems that are the fruit of a contemplative vision and a rich love of poetry’s paring-down possibilities.”

                               -Peggy Rosenthal, director of Poetry Retreats, and coeditor of

                                 Divine Inspiration: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry , and author

                                 of The Poet’s Jesus: Representations at the End of a Millenium

“Thanks for the well named (A) Rage Of Intelligence..."

                             - Les Murray, Australia's leading poet and winner of the T.S. Eliot Award

““I envy...the epigrammatic quality of (these) poems.”

                              -Robert Murray Davis, poet and author of Midlands: A Family Album

“I have read and reread it with growing pleasure and admiration.”

                             -William Bedford Clark, poet, coeditor of RWP: An Annual of

Robert Penn Warren Studies, and professor of English Literature at Texas A&M University

“I liked its (A Rage Of Intelligence) cadences.”

                              - Ed Sanders, poet, and author of Tales of Beatnik Glory