Amid the buzz of a heated election season, I wanted to pause from politics and share some news about the new book, Waiting for the Dead to Speak.

I am grateful for this review on Best American Poetry blog. I especially appreciate Patricia Welch’s last paragraph in the review, in the context of this long, painful election season:

The voice in Waiting for the Dead to Speak reverberates long after the book is closed making it a collection aimed at beginnings rather than endings. Understanding, compassion, and hope glimmer in a gray world.

I am also grateful for this review published last week by The Triangle.

Richard Payne writes:

Fanelli does not write as a person might expect of an English professor. He has a youthful, roving, and recursive mind. There is a simple, pure, working class wisdom to his verse. He ruminates upon the past as you  might expect an older man to, but he makes frequent references to the plain artifacts of a contemporary zeitgeist: going to punk shows, Occupy Wall Street, diners, Facebook requests, Youtube, the Iraq war, teen angst, X-Men comics, The Clash, the X-Files. It is a beautiful synthesis of a self-absorbed Millennial culture and the poetic, reflective impulse that tries to  transcend that culture.

Lastly, I wanted to share this interview I did with the “Weekly Reader” radio program, hosted by graduate students at the University of Minnesota.