The Blueing Hours

Author: Albert DeGenova

Publisher: Virtual Artists Collective (2008)

The Blueing Hours moves from darkness to light—the reader moves from passion to doubt to the struggle to survive intact—in a brilliantly structured book which carries the reader to dawn. This isn't surprising, for here is a poet who does not want to trade Earth for Heaven or Hell. Al DeGenova is betting everything that the objects of this world—flawed or not—are charged with meaning, that we humans need more than some elusive transformation into perfection. He rejects facile romanticism or the forgiveness that nostalgia offers. This is a book launched by the extension of the night: jazz clubs, neons, poetry readings, bar noises. DeGenova takes his readers from the red hours, the black hours to the blueing hours. He does not have to re-invent the color wheel, but rather use it to keep the world from the false dictionary of black and white. He is a generous poet, for, like the many visionaries of Chicago (including Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks), his insights are our insights. He makes us wealthy in a currency about soul, life, passion. One word at a time, one heartbreak at a time, one rescue at a time.