Album Notes

reVerse reViews: (visit www.reverse1.com for more)

About.com poetry guide Bob Holman ranks reVerse at #4 in his Top 10 Poetry Picks: The Best CDs of 2004. Leonard Cohen's Dear Heather is #2 and the Lenny Bruce Box Set is #5.

Literary Kicks, a Brooklyn, New York, based literary operation reviews reVerse. "I've been listening to the CD for a few weeks now and I'm pleased to say it exceeded my expectations and has given me a new perspective on how poetry, performance and music can intersect." -- Cayrn Thurman, Heartbreaking Business Manager of Staggering Genius, LitKicks.com

Anne Holub reviews reVerse at subsystence.net
"reVerse... begins to show us exactly where words and rhythms have been all along, in poetry." "reVerse reminds us with its mere existence that poetry belongs between our ears and mouths as well as beneath our fingertips."

One of the great assets of (reVerse) is that it contains such a great variety of good poetry, music, and their combination. For my taste, the most innovative ones were those where the music grew out, so to speak, from the words, from the rhythm and intonation of the text. Indeed, I am so fond of music inherent in poetry that I did not really mind that, as in some cases, the text was not accompanied by instruments or by other voices.
-- John Neubauer, PhD, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Amsterdam

"We love your cd! We have played the whole thing on www.luver.com And it is now in luver's mix..so you are often on luver!" --Frank Moore

"Echo and Shadow, written and performed by Li-Young Lee, does something remarkable; it reaches inside the listener and grabs hold of something in the chest, and, like a warm hand, it holds that "something" for the duration of the track. You'll have to listen to it to experience what I'm talking about. It is a great poem, and the placement of it at the beginning of reVerse optimizes the experience of the CD by sucking the listener in to the mood right from the start." -- C. J. Laity, chicagopoetry.com



Album Description:
From avant garde to gospel, lyric narrative to electronica, reVerse features established as well as emerging poets and songwriters. Bending and blurring genres, this collection of poems, songs and poem-songs includes 14 artists from Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

reVerse was recorded at Soma Electronic Music Studios, Chicago, and was mastered by Colossal Mastering, Chicago. Wilco band member Mikael Jorgensen was the engineer and a musical contributor on "Skyscraper (Delux)" and "Words are My Salvation."

reVerse Charitable Cause: A portion of the proceeds from reVerse sales go to The Poetry Center of Chicago's Hands on Stanzas program. The Poetry Center hires poets to teach in Chicago's inner-city schools. Throughout the school year students discuss and read poetry, and write and perform their own poems. In the last five years 11,000 kids have been taught through weekly classes. Visit www.poetrycenter.org for information.