We encounter many voices in life: from friends and family, from media, from co-workers, from other artists. In a highly connected global world, where people and entities are electronically enmeshed, we filter these voices constantly to get to what we determine to be the truth. Taking inspiration from pop culture, politics, art, and social media, Martin Ott mines daily existence as the inspiration and driving force behind Underdays. Underdays is a dialogue of opposing forces: life/death, love/war, the personal/the political. Ott combines global concerns with personal ones, in conversation between poems or within them, to find meaning in his search for what drives us to love and hate each other. Within many of the poems, a second voice, expressed in italic, hints at an opposing force “under” the surface, or multiple voices in conversation with his older and younger selves―his Underdays―to chart a path forward. What results is a poetic heteroglossia expressing the richness of a complex world.

Underdays (Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry)

Humor & Entertainment

Ott, Martin

Humor

University of Notre Dame Press

“The Truth Is Not the Truth.” – Unless We Fight for It Nail and Tooth In an era of “alternative facts,” where our POTUS has labeled the press the enemy of the people and coined the term “fake news,” truth and lies are duking it out in a battle for the soul of our country. In Martin Ott’s groundbreaking FAKE NEWS POEMS –52 Weeks, 52 headlines, 52 poems, he uses news headlines as launch pads for poems that are political, personal, and powerfully encapsulate the themes of 2017. Praise for Fake News Poems “Poetry has always sought to illuminate the mystery and wonder of the world, and Martin Ott’s wonderful Fake News Poems does just that. Set in a time where reality and fact have been challenged, brutalized, and systematically unwound, this book attempts to marvel at the complexities and simplicity of the human experience as we become increasingly unmoored. It’s an anchor in unsure times, an achievement we should all applaud and learn from.” Jared Yates Sexton Author of The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: a Story of American Rage “Martin Ott collects clickbait headlines and transmutes them into lyric truths.” Jesse Walker Reason Books Editor and Author of The United States of Paranoia “Inside the circuitry of daily brash, bogus American media and administrative onslaught, Martin Ott lassos the ludicrous and navigates deep existential waters, wielding the dreadful truth of personal and political material into lines of poetry that elicit both chuckles and sighs. Lest we forget we are embodied beings with soul, not to mention history and facts that need tending and preservation. For sanity, for survival, and to protest the reduction of meaning to ridiculous, trivial heights. This masterful writer succeeds in smashing rhetorical kitsch to smithereens, making a mighty reconstructed art of the inspected pieces that glitters with vulnerability, wit, and perceptive gravitas page after page. As insightful Ott points out: Love is not hard (and) It is a shelter from lies.” Michelle Bitting Author of Broken Kingdom and The Couple Who Fell to Earth “Merriam-Webster defines “news” as “a report of recent events.” So, can there be such a thing as “fake news”? We may never know. Political manipulators, radio loudmouths, and fringe lunatics with podcasts tell us what’s real and what isn’t, and we’re more than happy to leave the thinking to them. Websites seduce us with clickbait, and we say, “Thank you.” Martin Ott, however, is having none of it. In 52 poems, each a response to a genuine headline, he offers us 52 witty, poignant, and cynical commentaries that take on the madness and silliness assaulting us minute after minute. As somebody who spent his career in media relations, I’ll tell you what isn’t fake: the work in Martin’s smart new collection. Take a break from the 24-hour noise machines and spend some time with these poems. They’re as incisive as a New York Times op-ed.” Joel Allegretti Rabbit Ears, TV Poems Editor and Author of Platypus

Fake News Poems

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

BlazeVOX Books

"Ott's prose crackles and sizzles. There's never a dull moment, right to the riveting end. It's the kind of novel Hemingway might have written had he been alive today."&nbsp;~Erik Martiny, author of Night of the Long Goodbyes&nbsp; West is a man looking to flee the past, barely old enough to drink and&nbsp;looking to rediscover himself after several tours in Afghanistan as a POW prison guard. After going AWOL, West looks to reunite with Solomon, his childhood best friend, who exists in the dark underworld of a Los Angeles gentleman's club, Club Paradise.&nbsp;West soon finds himself caught in the web of an Iranian family and its patriarch, Big Z Pourali, a former wrestler with a dark side and side businesses that put his dancers, employees, and family in peril. West stays in LA to look after Solomon but soon falls for the club owner's daughter Nikki. West must come to terms with the raw underside of a Los Angeles crime family and his own past, all the while hoping to maintain his sanity in the process.&nbsp;

Shadow Dance

Genre Fiction

Regal House Publishing

“You've stumbled upon the best travelogue you'll ever find. In poetry that drives in the fast lane, but also eagle-eyes every detail, this work brings the familiar to us, washed clean of our prejudices, made new in music. In a project Coleridge and Wordsworth would have appreciated, John F. Buckley and Martin Ott have written a book for the ages, and for our age and place.” -Laura Kasischke, author of Space, in Chains

Poets' Guide to America

Buckley, John F.

Brooklyn Arts Press

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Books by Ott, Martin