REVIEWS
"No One Dies at the Au Bon Pain is...engaging and accessible. The topics are self reflection and relationships, especially those that end. He still exercises that eye for the absurd amid the mundane.... Doug Holder [is] a poet of the people, not absorbed in navel gazing language games but reaching out and shaking readers awake."
—Main Street Rag

"Holder's work here is rich with textual imagery. A stranger's laugh becomes an 'astringent mixture of the hilarious and sinister.' Rain is a 'spectral tapping on the roof.' These are words of a master poet who sees the world clearly and shares that vision generously with readers."
—Midwest Book Review Bookwatch

"These books are printed and produced in the finest tradition of the small press: well laid-out and speaking to the mind rather than mass market. Centers of artistic energy seem to move around the country periodically, and it’s good to see rare meat on the finest tables again."
—Small Press Review

“This book is a gift, the silhouette of restlessness as Holder studies the way things end and sees that there is no real ending. He celebrates ‘a standing chant, a prayer for the common man.’ Holder understands compassion as generosity in tender poems carved from the quickened wood of the moment.”
—Afaa Michael Weaver, Simmons College

“The images and angles of thought and language are at once familiar and plain and odd. They are flashes of insight and snapshots of time and place and humanity.” —Dan Sklar, Endicott College

“With confidence and occasional flashes of humor, these are poems (lamentations/meditations) on what was, is, and ultimately will be. They are strong and unapologetic in both their rage and acceptance, offering up a clear view of the truth—that no one gets out of here alive.”
—Gloria Mindock, Červená Barva Press