Swastika Into Lotus

Richard’s newest book of poetry, Swastika Into Lotus, is now available through Carnegie Mellon Press. It’s been out for about a month now, and there are some great reviews starting to pop up. Early readers are saying things like:

“Tough, direct, gritty, full of wonder . . . there is nothing meek about Mr. Katrovas. . . . He sings with an authority that is guided by compassion, by an unblinking eye for what is beautiful within what is not.”

—The New York Times Book Review

If you’re wondering about the scope and content of the material, here’s what the Press has to say:

In Swastika into Lotus, Richard Katrovas, a “punk formalist,” casts a wary eye on poetry, poetry readings, higher education, the UFO cottage industry, organized religion, fine dining, climate change denial, and national right-wing politics. The book’s humor is dark, by turns self-deprecating and fierce, and yet many of the poems are unabashed in their assertions of both filial and romantic love. Heaving traditionally “formal” verse through a looking glass, Katrovas has produced a book that is not for the passive-aggressively “sensitive.”

Poems in the collection have previously appeared in The American Literary Review, Crazyhorse, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, New Orleans on New Orleans, and North American Review. It’s available here on Amazon, or through most other major booksellers.