Reviews
The poems in "Black Velvet Elvis" surprise twice. First by their distinctiveness, then by how they leave you unprepared for what comes next. To go from a gory workplace accident (Incident on the Plant Floor') to a sly satire on fashionistas (Labels') is to experience the invigorating diversity of J. D. Black's first book.', 'The flashy cover is a delight to the eye, as a well-known iconic hand graces it. Elvis, the older one, not the young one, is an equivalent symbol of Black and his later development into prose. We may be seeing the old Elvis on the cover, but the hand grasps the microphone firmly; like the older Elvis, Black may be late to arrive, but he seems confident in all that he has learned along the way and what he has brought to the table.', 'The poems in Black Velvet Elvissurprise twice. First by their distinctiveness, then by how they leave you unprepared for what comes next. To go from a gory workplace accident ('Incident on the Plant Floor') to a sly satire on fashionistas ('Labels') is to experience the invigorating diversity of J. D. Black's first book.', The flashy cover is a delight to the eye, as a well-known iconic hand graces it. Elvis, the older one, not the young one, is an equivalent symbol of Black and his later development into prose. We may be seeing the old Elvis on the cover, but the hand grasps the microphone firmly; like the older Elvis, Black may be late to arrive, but he seems confident in all that he has learned along the way and what he has brought to the table.', 'The poems in Black Velvet Elvis surprise twice. First by their distinctiveness, then by how they leave you unprepared for what comes next. To go from a gory workplace accident ('Incident on the Plant Floor') to a sly satire on fashionistas ('Labels') is to experience the invigorating diversity of J. D. Black's first book.'
