Missing the Exit, (Paperback)

Michael Adubato, being a man of many talents and experiences, perceives the world through a compassionate and undeceived lens. Writing in vers libre, the common language of his work justifies more than a single reading. Abubato's free verse poems are mostly lighter and observatory in tone, but can range from harsh objectivity to darker humour. Having travelled extensively, a notebook his companion, he brings these experiences to his literary endeavours. Born and raised in New Jersey, this American poet now resides in Belgium.

"In these poems, Adubato takes his readers on a journey around neighborhoods and across continents. Over meals with friends made throughout his travels, and through the sights and sounds he encounters as he explores destinations brand new and familiar, these poems stir all of our senses and encourage us to embark on our own excursions at home or abroad. This eclectic collection turns our negative response to "Missing the Exit" into one of the highlights of the trip."

--Lynne McEniry, poet and author of some other wet landscape

"MICHAEL ADUBATO's poems are those of the intelligent, alert poet who experiences and perceives the world around him with a compassionate and undeceived sensibility. As a former soldier, engaged in enabling the armed forces of different countries to communicate with each other in a common language his poems can range from harsh observation, to military black humour. However, most of the poems are lighter in tone than these two quotations with John Ashbery, the Beats, Charles Bukowski, Robert Frost, Frank O'Hara and Patti Smith registering stylistically in well-written free verse which bears reading more than once. They have been culled from Adubato's notebook kept during his travels and sometimes there are lines that remain in the mind through their disturbing originality."

-- James Sutherland-Smith, poet and author of The River and the Black Cat