Signal / Noise

“These are poems for calamitous end days. Given the state of the world, this makes Bill Scalia’s Signal / Noise to be timely reading. Fortunately, some lines provide relief with the sheen of their knowing—I will never see a long-haired blonde again without pausing to relish the fall of hair ‘in a perfect slow wave . . . like goats moving on the slopes of Gilead.’ From such poetry, even an atheist can glean the benefits of religion.”

Eileen R. Tabios

“Signal / Noise is a sure and faithful sign that the metaphysical lyric is as alive (as vital and vitalizing) now as it was when George Herbert struck the board ‘and cry’d, No more.’ The voice in these poems is unsettled but tenacious, dedicated (one is tempted to say, consecrated) to the task of living a fully conscious life, even if it means troubling those wounds across which faith sews its scars.”

Clark Davis

“Bill Scalia’s diction immediately pleases: his sense of what the poetic line will hold, often short and rhythmic whether metered or free. But there’s more. From a distant and detached longing—one prose poem records an ecstatic experience of a divine voice rebuking him—Signal / Noise deepens as it progresses, gathering steam for a dark road ahead where Scalia’s revelations are frighteningly real.”

Bainard Cowan