Missing the Exit

By Michael Adubato

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

• Language: English
• Publisher: Broken Keys Publishing
• Release date: Feb 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781988253381

Michael Adubato

Michael Adubato, born and raised in New Jersey, USA, is a poet and writer who works for NATO, although not in a poetic capacity. Living in Belgium, where he settled after his military career, he travels extensively for both work and pleasure. His poetry has previously been published in Ariel Chart (where he was nominated for Best of the Net in 2020 for To Soignies Station), The Piker Press, The Dope Fiend Daily and most recently The Indian Periodical. One of his passions is soccer and he writes about this constantly on the Yanks Abroad webpage (www.yanks-abroad.co).

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Foreword

I had known Michael Adubato first as a friend and colleague before I became acquainted with him as a poet, with a history of unpublished poems scattered across countless notebooks. At the time I had the pleasure of reading his work for the first time, I was the senior editor of the Ariel Chart literary journal. I accepted a few of his poems for publication, and appreciating their quality, Editor-in-Chief accepted a few more. This initial publication gave Adubato an impetus to organize his poetry in a collection of poems, unified around the leitmotif of travel, because most of the selected poems were written during moments of his exploring new cities and sites, or returning to marvel anew at the old ones.

For Adubato, travel is as essential as writing, for he doesn’t know "how not to write," or for that matter, not to yearn for travel. His striving to transmute observed life’s moments into verses is coupled with his burning need to visit new places, for he feels compelled to discover the world, learn about it and become familiar with the creations of both man and nature. "Home is nice," he says in a poem, but you cannot really live and learn and discover in a familiar and confined space.

His verses are a reflection of what he sees during his travels, what he feels and thinks while enwrapped in the solitude of contemplation in a European café, in a New Jersey Dunkin Donuts shop, on the slope of a mountain, or inside some ancient ruins, or a bookstore. By exploring the spaces without, he is inspired to mine the places within his interiority.

In free verse, Adubato skillfully captures the ambiance of ordinary moments. He views the mundane and ordinary through the poetic lens of the extraordinary. Because there are wonders hidden in everyday scenery and experiences, such as those in one’s kitchen during the turkey roasting for Thanksgiving, or while making waffles with maple syrup. His poem Lisbon exemplifies his style, which is unaffected and devoid of any poetic pomposity and arresting in its deceptively innocent depiction of life, because the simplicity of the lines, today, we’ll walk those hills, ride those trams...as we ignore the passing of our lives, is threaded with a deeper reflection on life’s transience. Such simplicity makes Adubato’s poetry accessible to all readers, who need not delve into excessive symbolism or heavy metaphorical language.

Adubato’s poetry is not focused