Poems by Francesco Levato
 “Francesco Levato writes with an urgency that will pull the covers off your eyes and ears. He is another Ginsberg appealing to America’s soul. Wake Up! Here are twenty-one “hard” poems with a tenderness woven into lines of violence. The women in Levato’s poems are survivors. A blues tint shadows many of the pages of Marginal State. Levato’s
urban silhouettes are memories waiting for morning light.”
– E. Ethelbert Miller, director,
African American Resource Center,
Howard University
“These poems are hard to grapple with at times because they examine the familiar landmarks of our culture—advertising, television, Coca-Cola, patriotism—with a critical eye, juxtaposing our friendly constructions with the despair of poverty, the crippling loneliness of isolation, and the amoral machinery of capitalism. These poems … push
us away from the center of our culture and make us question who we are when we
strip away the half-truths we so readily live with.”
– Todd Heldt, Before You Were a Prophet
“Sometimes Francesco Levato writes of common things
in a most uncommonly touching way. Other times he writes of stunningly original
insights and feelings in plain speak.”
– Charlie Newman, deadmachinecity
“In Marginal State, Francesco Levato’s well-crafted and sensual poems take the reader on a courageous exploration through despair and isolation, from this country to Italy via England, then full circle back to America, and hope, by the collection’s
end.”
– Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Ph.D.
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