Praise for Caligula's Playhouse

"Stephen Zerance's poetry is the work of a wild original, and the poems in this collection—whose reveries call from madness' ledge—exhibit a restraint and artistry of classical proportions. Tonight, in Rome, the gorgeous ruin of the emperors lies strewn beside the everyday. In Caligula's Playhouse a certain formal harmony meets our world's deepening dread. Zerance is a formidable poet and these poems are genius in their spare, unflinching gaze into the bath house of the self."

—David Keplinger

"Here comes a Stephen Zerance poem sashaying down the street: snakeskin tights, clean-shaven legs, black tee – why it could be Satan himself.  It's a far cry from the baggy khakis and extra-large shirt Zerance's father would have him wear, clothes sure to make him feel like a real man.  No dice.   Instead, Zerance has demons under his bed and phobias – mosquitos, bees, roaches, spiders, ticks – a veritable house of horrors. "I'm all meat, learning how to suffer," writes Zerance, his pain and longing all the more powerful for their formal restraint. These are elegant poems, knife thin, taut and edgy."

—Barbra Goldberg, Series Editor, the Word Works’ International Editions