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Praise - South Side Trilogy
John Hospodka’s work is passionate, strong and true. Here is a powerful new voice from Chicago's hardscrabble South Side. I only wish Nelson Algren were alive to read and encourage Hospodka. He's clearly a chip off the old Algren block. Watch this guy. Read this guy.
~John Callaway, “Friday Night” WTTW11
Hospodka is my favorite kind of artist: unapologetic. He bangs out both the
unsavory and the sweet with the fervor of a country preacher.
~Tracy Letts, playwright, “August: Osage County”
I can't imagine anyone in some other city striking the synthesis [Hospodka
has] going here.
~Stuart Dybek, author, I Sailed With Magellan
South Side Trilogy crackles with verbal energy and city-street smarts. John Hospodka’s collection of poems and prose sketches is full of surprises and wise turns. A favorite piece is the elegant “Hotel Hardscrabble.” Get in early on the first work of this intriguing new writer.
~G.E. Murray, poet, Arts of a Cold Sun
Reviews - South Side Trilogy
"Not so much a verse-novel as a poetic snapshot of life inHardscrabble, the legendary slum of Chicago, the work somehow manages to exude a wistful air of nostalgia while bringing the day-to-day life of contemporary Chicago to the foreground, as though you didn't just rub shoulders with ghosts in the windy city, but walked right into them."
BLUEPEPPER
"Hospodka's roots in Chicago's South Side come through loud and clear. Imagine a Bohemian Mike Royko. Hospodka paints a picture of Chicago that, like Royko, takes this immense and sometimes overbearing city, for what it is: dirty, unforgiving and home."
Read full Gapers Block Review
"South Side Trilogy evokes the character of a place more than a specific set of characters. Hos [Hospodka] ... pulled the Hardscrabble archetype from Bridgeport [Chicago]. 'The people of Hardscrabble are souls from a tough neighborhood who have very soft hearts.'"
Read full examiner.com Review
"Hospodka's blend of tragedy and hope serves as the concrete mix with which he mends the shatter marks of a broken heart. ... John Hospodka's writing jabs like a Golden Gloves boxer, always keeping you on your feet so you can feel the next punch as it hits. Reading John Hospodka's work is reading Chicago."
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