Where you grow up makes a lasting impression regardless of where it was that happened and who you became later. Sicoli’s poems in Slag Alley delve into the back alleys, the deep experiences that make excellent poetry from the mundane life. He reflects back to an age when an older brother or a wild man from the neighborhood can attain a kind of mythic aura through his exploits by pushing the envelope as far as it can go. Upon reflection these awe-inspiring deeds are more recklessly suicidal than they are heroic. But at the time, well at the time they were just beyond what happens every day, fifty years later they still seem magical. 

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John Herkimer's Brother

With his high school dropout blue jean demeanor
john herkimer’s brother was a dowry hunter
and a close caller
a midnight oil tanker man
who sold us prescriptions of promise
of fabled teenage americana
with the conviction of a slop house tattoo artists

somewhere between gin mill spirits
grease gun drippings
and wispy smokes in the back of a borrowed van
he turned morning lies into evening desire
on a tiny earth that coveted our dreams

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The longest poem in the collection, “jack mckumby’s evolving soul” is another larger-than-life character from the poet’s youth. His story is not fantastic from afar but if it is someone you know, well it feels like one of those stories that has to be told, one of the reasons why we tell stories in the first place. 

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Elsewhere in this tightly constructed, hand sewn chapbook, a work of art in itself, there are first sexual fumbling in back seats of cars, in a closet make out sections, drunken exploits with free spirited women too young to know any better, all part of the coming of age process.  In the end memories of place are what drives this chapbook; without our memories our lives are nothing. These are all memories worth keeping.