Power Ballads

By Garrett Caples Description Reviews A power ballad was a hair metal band's voyage into the softer side of rock, compromising to the integrity of the genre, but genuine and trailblazing. So too is Caples' Power Ballads. His poems and prose pieces are bizarre and hilarious, in which Dylan and Bowie sit alongside the French surrealists, with the occasional turn into heartfelt romanticism. Caples (Complications) fills his newest collection with musicality and pathos, anchoring his playful language with ardent longing. Just like great power ballads, these poems are maudlin yet still authentically moving…A love song to Oakland, to idols, and to love itself, Caples’s raucous, tender, and tuneful collection lives up to its title.Publishers Weekly Garrett Caples’s Power Ballads offers rhythmic insight into the youthful heyday of Generation X. Interspersing references to hip-hop culture, modernist poets, and classic rock legends, Caples uses his experience as an artistic insider to