Review of Filched by James Tolan

Without an intermediary, a thickly (or at least thinly) constructed persona to absorb sentiment’s backwash, confessional poetry often erodes and collapses of its own weight. Some of it can be downright dangerous. In his new book, Filched, James Tolan avoids that pathetic destructiveness using tonal restraint, irony, and damn good storytelling. Each poem Tolan breathes onto his pages burns with a purloined joy, freed from time’s untoward tyranny. For more of my review go here:   http://dougholder.blogspot.com/2017/12/filched-poems-by-james-tolan.html