It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This by Greg Masters

In this new book of poems, his ninth from Crony Books, Masters cuts through the lies perpetrated as the American Dream pitched to us like soap detergent over the past 50 years. The title poem is an attempt at a sort of "Howl 2". Written in a wayward trochaic octameter (eight beats a line) it is a grand kvetch to pierce veneer, call out government miscreants and establish truths attesting to perspectives chronically pushed to the margins and excluded from corporate boardrooms and TV fantasies. The bulk of the book is taken up by "My East Village," another epic poem (in trochaic octameter) that chronicles the downtown neighborhood Masters has lived in for the past 45 years, celebrating its cultural riches while bemoaning its blandification.