"Suicide Psalms" is both hymn and visceral scream--of loss, despair, hope and ultimately redemption. These poems are drawn out with quick precision, as if they were indeed written in haste, or delirium, before tightening the noose or firing the pistol or jumping off of the ledge. Even though the media has recognized suicide as an epidemic, it is still not "talked" about outside of grief management and support groups. The subject remains taboo, and those left behind face a legacy of silence, shame and guilt. The poems in the first section of the book "Suicide Notes" attempt to answer the question "why"? Their density of language, slippage of syntax, sound play, repetition, and visceral imagery engender both empathy and relief, as each poem bears witness and pays homage.The work also addresses a larger collective malaise: the disintegration of society and "self," the loss of innocence and exploitation of youth, and the hopelessness and despair that smoulders under the veneer of corporate greed, rabid consumerism, and the resultant addictions, aberrations and violence.