How Things Stack Up

HOW THINGS STACK UP is Castro's fifteenth book, which include collections of his own poetry, translations of modern Hungarian poets with Gabor G. Gyukics, and the prose work, Interpreting the Indian: Twentieth Century Poets and the Native American. Charles Guenther wrote of Castro in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Michael Castro is a legend on the St. Louis poetry scene, as an editor, arts activist, and radio host, and for his poems, which have been widely published. His voice is wide-ranging and versatile. Whether in long lines . . . or in terse measured syllables, his voice is original." How Things Stack Up contains mostly new poems with a few older ones, like the celebrated "Man Who Looked Into Coltrane's Horn," sprinkled in. Each poem functions individually and as part of a longer sequence, and is marked by Castro's characteristic evocative word music and vivid imagery. Jerred Metz wrote of the collection, "These are poems of substance. Each is a gem, a treat, a treasure, a treasury of verse and thought, and takes its rightful place in the collection."