Dancing on Main Street
Reviews

The Dallas Morning News:
“Lorenzo Thomas has a new book of poetry—the casual, conversational poems concern maturity, the Vietnam War, the history of the blues, East Texas, extended family and public events.”

John Ashbery:
"Lorenzo Thomas's poems have a graceful New York School nonchalance that can swiftly become a hard and cutting edge when he writes of the African American experience, especially in his adopted home of Texas. 'This useless clairvoyance/is embarrassing,' he confides. Yet Thomas's brand of clairvoyance is not only useful, but beautiful."

Publishers Weekly:
"This caustically modern, enticingly various and ironically titled collection is a very welcome major release...poems concern the war in Vietnam, the history of the blues, the sights of East Texas, the structure of an extended family, public events (like the Amadou Diallo shooting) and, in one realistic series, marriage, love and sex."

Ron Silliman:
“Dancing on Main Street from Coffee House Press is Thomas’ latest book & it’s as full of mysteries & glories as his earlier works…Thomas is as alive as any poet I know to not just the presence of ambiguity & irony, but to their political value as well.”

Aldon L. Nielsen:
"If, like Lorenzo Thomas, you know that 'church' can be a verb, then this is your book. If not, then let this book school you. As his previous work 'The Bathers' remains one of the very best poems to arise from the Civil Rights Movement, here 'Last Call' stands as one of the only poems about the veterans of the war in Viet Nam that, like the veterans, survives that war, survives the wreckage of language wrought by that war, survives its country's call. Dancing on Main Street begins 'anyplace you've ever been' and ends with 'back-ordered tears.' In between is America."