The magical-realist fables and bizarre folk tales that are the poems in FESTIVAL OF DANGEROUS IDEAS conjure a nightmare world of what could be in the not-too-distant future especially considering where we are in our state of politics. It’s a surrealist statement on politics, religion, family, love and art. This is poetry of the imagination lit by old knowledge. Imagine entering a festival where booth after booth displays scary and strangely familiar scenes of depravity or absurd theater. And while these poems are very much compelling vignettes, they’re told with “luminous images that satisfies with the magic of its narrative drive”--poet and professor of English at Miami Dade College Michael Hettich. Poet Denise Duhamel says these are “fabulist poems, dreamy utterances, miniature philosophies, and shape-shifting epiphanies”. DellaRocca “does what every poet (and driver on wet roads) should do--he steers into the skid”.
