Local Poet Steven Lazarov Book Reading & Signing at Bobzbay Books
“sometimes I think about your hand almost touching a side of my face
a quarter of an hour is nothing”
acab yearning by Steven Lazarov is a poetry collection that interrogates how the ongoing fight against police brutality and the rebellion sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 entangle with the deep, personal longing for missing human connections. The poet not only longs for love but he also longs for a world without police brutality; a world where race isn’t the reason for mass death at blue hands.
Informed by philosophy and the long tail of justice, Lazarov reveals an original poetic voice that is just as adept screaming into the void as it is whispering heartfelt words to the other, as he focuses on the restorative power afforded by poetry to foster comradeship, fellow feeling, and connection. With an abolitionist soul and a bardic sweep, acab yearning probes possibilities to transcend the gulfs that separate souls in our fractured society.
About the Author
Steven Lazarov received an MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. He is currently working on a PhD in English at Illinois State University, focusing on the long abolitionist project and how metaphys- ical interventions might offer us escape valves from a closed world ur- gently in need of transformation. His poems have appeared in Protean, Dream Pop, Waccamaw, Cathexis, and Sheriff Nottingham. He will usually take the pancakes instead of the toast.