“In The Cases, Les Gottesman gives us an allusive and witty poetry of jarring juxtapositions—a minimalist and somewhat surreal landscape in which “a blond Cyclops scuttles/like a crustacean late for a manicure,” in which “space darkly jangles,” and where “the roses sweat mercury.” It’s William Carlos Williams in a madhouse of the imagination. Brave and polished work with the universe in its crosshairs.”
—Gail Wronsky, judge
“Les Gottesman’s poems are funny and personal, sharp and obscure. His tightly arranged sounds and vivid words take you somewhere but don't tell you where it is. He’s a grave jester with a speeding mind and a montage artist’s control of tone.”
—Bruce F. Kawin
“Les Gottesman’s lines stack up brilliantly like frames in a comic strip or animated cartoon. The poetic intelligence that put them there is subtle, investigative, a bulwark against both self-seriousness and anyone’s (the reader’s) generalized assumptions. Gottesman the Gentle Ironist sees the world’s well-worn limitations as imprinted still on dance cards, no matter how rumpled, of possibility, the liklihood that the words, so precisely chosen, will see us through.”
—Bill Berkson
