When poetry focuses on the more sinful, cruel, and pathological side of human nature, we typically refer to it as "dark." I wouldn't describe Scott Holstad's poetry that way. His works are so violent, angry, and self-effacing that they seem to transcend darkness; they are so engorged with pain that questions of morality and immorality seem irrelevent.
Despite his recent Pulitzer nomination, Scott remains active on the small press circuit, which is odd, because you'd think most small presses would be afraid to print this stuff.
Scott has authored eight poetry books. His most recent one is entitled Never-Ending Cigarettes. The one before that, Places (Sterling House P, 1995), was nominated for the 1996 Pulitzer Prize. You can find these books in the Unlikely Stories bookstore. His work has appeared in hundreds of magazines in 26 countries and 5 languages, including journals such as The Minnesota Review, Hawaii Review, Wisconsin Review, Kiosk, Chiron Review, Long Shot, Exquisite Corpse, Textual Studies in Canada, Pacific Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Arkansas Review, and Southern Review. He's also been published at a plethora of web sites, and you can obtain the complete list from his home page at http://www.well.com/user/sch/. He plans to release three more books in 1999 and he's currently shopping for a publisher for a very large book of poems. You can e-mail him about this, or any other issue, at sch@well.com.
Scott's works here at Unlikely Stories are:
July 1999 - July 2000:
Hush
Roller Coaster
Lisa
No More Mochas
Inside, ya...
July 1998 - July 1999:
asking for it
truths
Cloudy, but who cares?
EST
Live With It