Joe Benevento's Expecting Songbirds, Selected Poems, 1983-2015, provides readers with the opportunity to sample the very best of the writer's work from his four previous books in poetry: Holding On, Willing To Believe, My Puerto Rican Past and Tough Guys Don't Write, along with some of his most recent journal-published poems collected under the heading "Ode to Pears." Oftentimes narrative, and predominantly free verse, Benevento's poems mirror his Italian-American, working class roots in a predominantly black and Latino neighborhood in Queens, but they also look back on his past three decades as professor, editor and writer in the small-town, overwhelmingly white Midwest and the tensions and ironies of having lived the life of an outsider in both settings. Poems delivered with the "plain spoken ease and realism of Frost" (Walter Bargen) and which, "at their best bring to mind the exceptional work of Philip Levine and B.H. Fairchild," (Larry D. Thomas), Expecting Songbirds is an affirmation of Whitman's goal to seek the miraculous in the commonplace. Whether dealing with never quite lost loves, multi-layered lessons gleaned from nature, or a bittersweet but genuine belief in family, Expecting Songbirds stands as testament to over three decades of serious commitment to accessible poetry by a writer who has not underestimated the redeeming value in never taking oneself too seriously.

Expecting Songbirds

Literature & Fiction

Benevento, Joe

Poetry

purple flag

My Perfect Wife, Her Perfect Son reimagines the Holy Family’s story through the very human voice of Joseph. Mary’s pregnancy only begins his troubles. He has to navigate the unreasonable dictates of a disheveled, wise-cracking Angel Shlomo, Mary’s surprising insistence that she remain a “Blessed Ever Virgin,” pushy in-laws, Roman contractors, Jesus’s crazy cousin John, and the allure of the harlot Safiya, just a few of the challenges for an imperfect man assigned to become a role model for the son of God.

My Perfect Wife, Her Perfect Son

Genre Fiction

Addison & Highsmith Publishers

Kiss of the Moonflower: A Cupelli Brothers Mystery (Cupelli Brothers Mysteries)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Black Opal Books

Set in Queens, New York, in the early '70s, the Odd Squad tells a story of friendship challenged by peer pressure, prejudice and the allure of sex and drugs. The interracial romance between Frankie and Laura is threatened by a neighborhood more ready to explode from hate than be redeemed by love.

The Odd Squad

Romance

Historical

Behler Pubns

WHEN HIS LOVER IS MURDERED, MONSIGNOR CUPELLI BECOMES THE CHIEF SUSPECT. "...Benevento's novel is meticulously plotted and full of surprises- he keeps us guessing from chapter to chapter, page to page."-Jack Smith, author of Hog To Hog,George Garrett Fiction Prize Winner. Monsignor Tony Cupelli, a pastor in working-class Queens, has always been controversial, due to his support of a married clergy and women as priests, and for his not completely secret affair with Maggie Rosario. Cupelli's new book on a feminine Holy Spirit again puts him in the spotlight, but not as much as news of the murder of Rosario, just when Cupelli was trying to break off their relationship, a break she had postponed by quirky and Santería-inspired approaches to their love-making. Cupelli is both suspect and amateur detective as he tries to decipher the many clues the killer has intentionally left, clues that promise future crimes patterned on the murders in one of Cupelli's favorite short stories. The criminal outsmarts Cupelli and the police at every turn, even to the scary and erotic surprise ending set up from the very beginning. "...a murder mystery as complicated as the Holy Trinity itself."-Lara Olsen, Television Writer and Producer (Reba, Private Practice, 90210, Mixology). "...double and triple layers of meaning, [a]gritty and authentic Queens, NY background, [a] troubled and conflicted protagonist, and [a] wonderfully diverse supporting ensemble. A great debut." -Carol Goodman, Hammett Award Winning Mystery Writer, The Seduction of Water. "The Monsignor's Wife is a witty, fast-paced portrait of a man who doesn't seem to realize that he's racing face-first into the teeth of his own hypocrisy and weakness."-Stephen Wingate, Author of Wifeshopping, Bakeless Fiction Prize Winner. "...a grittily realistic portrayal of working class Italian-American life in a blue collar corner of Queens...the thought provoking depth is exceeded only by the chills-up-your-spine entertainment!" -Lee Slonimsky, Co-Author of the Lee Carroll Black Swan Rising Trilogy.

The Monsignor's Wife

Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC

"Playground" picks up momentum from Benevento's previous two books of poetry, his volume of "selected" poems, (Expecting Songbirds 1983-2015), and his chapbook of poems in his own invented form, After, by including poems with an even wider range of publication dates than in Expecting Songbirds, and the presence of eight new "After" poems among its twenty-six lyrics. 
Themes such as the after effects of unrequited love, growing up in working class Queens, the redeeming potential in family, all make their appearance. This collection offers far more than recapitulation, though, with poems set in places as varied as a bagel shop in Columbus, a tapas bar in downtown Miami and a barrio in East Oakland, and subjects ranging from rehabbing a shoulder impingement, to participating in a track program for underprivileged youth to inventing a new kind of cake. 
Throughout these poems, Benevento affirms, as he has in published work for over thirty-five years now, his obsession with the paradox of poetry's ability to offer hope to a world that seems often hopeless without it.

Playground

Unsolicited Press

The Cracker Box Poems

Mouthfeel Press

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Books by Benevento, Joe