Talking to Yourself, by John Calvin Hughes

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Talking to Yourself is an experiment in second person point of view. The poems are written in second person, but they are not addressed to the reader, as most second-person pieces are. These poems are, in fact, first person narrators speaking to themselves and calling themselves “you.” As when you drop your phone and crack the screen and tell yourself, “You are an idiot.” The poems range from the meditative to the dramatic. Some reflect the loneliness and depression resulting from the Covid lockdown. Others are nostalgic. Some of them are reconceived and updated well-known poems from literary anthologies. A couple might be called “brautigans.” There’s even a sonnet! All in all, the poems in this chapbook provide moments of delight and wonder that will stay with the reader long after the book is closed. John Calvin Hughes has published in numerous magazines and journals, including Dead Mule, Southern Indiana Review and Mississippi Review. His publications include a critical study, The Novels and Short Stories of Frederick Barthelme (The Edwin Mellen Press); two poetry chapbooks, The Shape of Our Luck (Sargent Press) and Cul-de-sac Agonistes (Black Bomb Books); a full-length poetry collection, Music from a Farther Room (Aldrich Press); a fiction chapbook, Voices Carry (Bottlecap Press); and four novels, Twilight of the Lesser Gods (CreateSpace), Killing Rush (Second Wind Publishing), The Lost Gospel of Darnell Rabren (Bowen Press Books), and The Boys (Regal House). His newest novel, The Green Man, will be released in the fall of 2025.