"All the ghosts in my hometown, the latest collection by the prolific Matt Borczon is surely aptly titled. To call it a love letter to the poet's hometown or a nostalgic ode to adolescence would adequate only in the most basic of interpretations. Indeed, the collection provides nuanced, multi-faceted analyses of what it means to have lived the life that Borczon has. While for sure there are brief glimpses of sweet reminiscence, the poet drills down and expresses the ambiguous nature of our collective existence. There's something beautifully universal without losing the razor-edged specificity that Borczon is known for. When reaching the final poem of the collection, the reader feels as though they have shared all of these experiences, lived a parallel life with the poet, and that is precisely what makes All the ghosts in my hometown so successful, and so deeply moving. Matt Borczon has long-established himself as one of the most engaging poets writing today, but with All the ghosts in my hometown, he has once again raised the bar for writers and readers alike." -James Benger, author of One Week "In his latest collection, All the Ghosts in My Hometown, Matt Borczon maps the lives of the tender, lost misfits and dreamers he knew growing up in Erie, Pennsylvania. Borczon's Erie is not the Erie of posh lakeside yacht clubs and wind-sails and boat drinks. The human landscape of Borczon's world is often box-cutter and bullet violent, a place where a sad girl cuts herself and saves her blood in old soda bottles; a place where a sweet stripper believes numerology can help anyone pick their perfect pet and the moon is sinking into the earth so fast she can feel it; a place where a coal miner's memory of light amounts to stars piercing the sky like pinholes on the lid of a coffin. Borczon's people are rendered with a complexity and tenderness that can come only from a writer who's been there, in both that darkness and light, himself. In one poem, the speaker imagines gathering again with his childhood bandmates, and how, after years of loss and experience, "we can/ all plug in/ and play/ Knocking on /Heaven's Door /and mean it / like we never could /at nineteen." This is a beautiful, longing, heart-rich book about growing up and growing old, and the empathy, understanding, and wisdom only age can bring." -Lori Jakiela, author of All Skate: True Tales from Middle Life "While the rest of use are still fumbling with words, Matt Borczon has been writing his poems with f