"It s a quick spin through Homolka s spare, sculpted lines from the collection of Jews permits to the six-day war to emaciated lovers receiving stars from the backs of chariots. Clearly, history, and particularly Jewish history, will be the topic of this Kathryn A. Morton Prize winner, and clearly the language will be punchy and irreverent. VERDICT: Refreshing, energetic work; many readers will enjoy."
Library Journal, "Summer Poetry: 13 Smart New Collections from Debut and Veteran Authors Alike"
"Homolka s alluring debut seamlessly tiles scenes of past and present to create a mosaic that is constantly conscious of the inescapability of time. Aware that he is presenting perennial human questions in new imagery, Homolka lets his metaphors do the work so that the craft, not cleverness, shines through."
Publishers Weekly Though timeless in its associations...this is a collection infused with the cyclical nature, and often unbearable passage, of time and an unflinching awareness of the horrors human beings can visit upon each other.... Thoughtful, piercing, and sometimes startling in its darker moments, this collection echoes long.
Booklist"
"It's a quick spin through Homolka's spare, sculpted lines from the collection of Jews' permits to the six-day war to "emaciated lovers" receiving stars from the backs of chariots. Clearly, history, and particularly Jewish history, will be the topic of this Kathryn A. Morton Prize winner, and clearly the language will be punchy and irreverent.... VERDICT: Refreshing, energetic work; many readers will enjoy."
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Library Journal, "Summer Poetry: 13 Smart New Collections from Debut and Veteran Authors Alike"
"Homolka's alluring debut seamlessly tiles scenes of past and present to create a mosaic that is constantly conscious of the inescapability of time.... Aware that he is presenting perennial human questions in new imagery, Homolka lets his metaphors do the work so that the craft, not cleverness, shines through."
--
Publishers Weekly "Though timeless in its associations...this is a collection infused with the cyclical nature, and often unbearable passage, of time and an unflinching awareness of the horrors human beings can visit upon each other.... Thoughtful, piercing, and sometimes startling in its darker moments, this collection echoes long."
--
Booklist
The poems in Antiquity stage meeting grounds for the irreconcilable, as Homolka gives us the present infused with the past. Heroes of ancient Greece and Rome puzzle over contemporary war atrocities; a warning cry from the Holocaust gains eerie immediacy; and the Black Death reprises itself in this haunting, richly textured debut.
Michael Homolka is a graduate of Bennington College's MFA program and currently lives in New York City, New York, where he teaches high school English through the NYC Teaching Fellows program. Homolka's poems have appeared in theNew Yorker, Ploughshares, Boulevard, Parnassus, the Threepenny Review, and elsewhere.