A History of Broken Love Things

by SB Stokes

The first verb in SB Stokes' magnum opus, A History of Broken Love Things, is "wanna." He is a poet of hope, expectation, and desire, which prepare us for the erratic path of life as it is actually lived: "a large weepy beast, / a guy with some hats, / a stark-raging husband, / an ineffectual queen." In the beautifully titled poem, "dark magick / a solitude by duke," he writes, "The piano pounds its own heart into bits." But even desolation offers its glittering souvenir. Read this book and prepare to have your life lifted, your heart broken. Paul Hoover, editor of Postmodern American Poetry

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 23, 2014

About the author

SB STOKES writes, draws, designs, produces, and edits in the hills behind a lake in Oakland, California.

His first book of poetry, A History of Broken Love Things, was published by Punk Hostage Press in 2014.

A chapbook of SB's poems, DARK ENTRIES, was also published in 2014 as part of a joint project by Gorilla Press and The Pedestrian Press.

In 2018, he self published a chapbook called Let's Call This Nothing.

A fourth generation Californian, SB holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and is both the former poetry and art editor for Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review, as well as being a ten-plus year employee of SF State's legendary Poetry Center & American Poetry Archive.

His poems have been published both in print and online in many quality publications.

He often asks for water, but, so far, has never been given gasoline.

sbstokes@boun.cr

Reviews

[Gabriel Gusman · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many things right about this poetry book, it's where to start that is the only problem that I have with it. each word does what it should, hit. it pulls at the heart and tugs at the soul. the rhythm and pace puts you in the head space of SB Stokes as he take you along, maybe as his wingman, through the joys and bullshit that makes life worth expecting more from. It's hard to have favorites with a book like this(like the first meatloaf album, bat out of hell)with so many solid poems that left me whole, but I would say Quick, Create Distance. Then TG Gets Me(Thinking) and Repeat. made me wish that I would have thought of that.

crap! such a enjoyable book. Brilliant.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a good solid read. It might be an excellent way to introduce poetry to non-poetry readers. There's no *hipster* gimmick to it. It has passion without bathos, ambition without academic pretense, and it is straightforward without feeling dumbed down.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many unique descriptive passages throughout, but I was not always moved by the content as a whole. The author has a way of describing a moment or impression vividly, but I came away not remembering the import of whole poems. Still, I would recommend it for the bright images, which lead to other ideas.

[SB Stokes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote, sequenced, edited, designed, and laid out this book.

There are ZERO typos and it turned out exactly as I hoped it would.

Hence, my five star rating. Hope you don't mind.