Josh Russell

Typically, I'm not first in line for Hemingway because most people botch the style up. It's the quintessential American contribution to literature, along with Whitman and Hawthorne and Poe. When I saw Josh Russell's poem "Rome, October" in Diagram issue 6.2 here though, I knew someone had gotten it right. 

And he wrote about how Hubig's Pies in New Orleans burned down in 2012, I still wince.

He's got a great style, with a touch of the La Dolce Vita Italy in there; excellent. Here's an excerpt from the end of his wide short poem:

[...]                                            and woke the next morning to the moaning of pigeons roosting in dresser drawers, escaping Sunday's chilly dawn. The bells rang and rang.

I also loved his piece "Moscow" in Fiction Southeast here, issue Fall 2011--here's an excerpt, it's an excellent poem about war, which is rarely done well. I love his take on it:

Before the war I was a pastry chef, a milliner, a streetcar conductor, the foreman of a vodka distillery. My name is Josef, is Karl, is Alexander, [...]

The first lesson: In war, the heart grows ill. [...]