Montano, Joe, III

California Prayer & Other Poems 2010-2016 Montano, Joe, III

The road trip is the prayer. California Prayer conveys the beauty of a false paradise, one we acknowledge is imperfect, but a finer place than the one we accept. Though applied here in a secular frame, a prayer is always honest. Pursuing true love, deliverance from addiction and the crossroads of identity and place perch on the fingertips and tongue of the poems within. Like a road trip, a prayer is not conceived by a preacher or a church - it is something personal, and comforting...and, while harmless, is ultimately futile. But, same as a journey with a destination but no map, something is learned, something is answered with no conceivable source. The road trip is the prayer. The poems in Other Poems 2010-2016 represent various styles and experiments in both experiencing and studying the importance of family history, identity, abstract and surreal memory and the timelessness of travel. They wind through a pivotal period of the author's life, attempting to reveal his authenticity as poet and human-being, and how they intersect.