Odd Man Out

In Odd Man Out, Dennis Daly poetically contemplates the universe with dark humor and dead-on clarity. Daly’s quantum word-mechanics merge the observer and object, changing both. A murderous prophet, a gunslinging lawman, venerated child-saints, and a medley of not quite ordinary people intermix with formalized creation and myth-making metaphysics. A musical meditation for the ages.

Dennis Daly’s Odd Man Out is a thought-provoking poetry collection that encompasses a wide range of themes, seamlessly weaving narrative and thoughtful observation into a lyric meditation on the human condition. His distinctive blend of reality with mythological and allegorical elements engages the reader in a contemplative journey through a series of unique characters and scenarios, inviting them to explore the boundaries between the ordinary and the extraordinary. With keen social commentary, the poems examine essential questions about life, virtue, vice, and the enigmatic nature of existence. Whether describing the opulence of a palace with “gold-leaf roofs in Thimphu” or the distant, glimmering objects in the vastness of space as “frozen sparks” or”a universal waterspout inverted into heavy rain,” Daly’s words paint vivid mental pictures and demonstrate his mastery in conveying both the tangible and the abstract with clarity and depth, making the book an immersive and intellectually stimulating read.

-Philip Nikolayev, author of Monkey Time and his translation, The Star of Dazzling Ecstasy: 79 Poems by Alexander Pushkin

Marking pages to cite particular poems as my favorites, I ran out of post-it notes in the reread of this wonderful book. Daly has an eximious sense of rhythm, pace, and momentum that lead to a great read. Jan Oort fans, rejoice: Dennis Daly is on our side.

-Michael Casey, author of Check Points, Obscenities (Yale Younger Poets), and Millrat