More Songs the Radio Won’t Play: Poems

Lyrical poetry inspired by popular songs, Rogal sweeps the reader through the journey of creation.

In More Songs the Radio Won’t Play, Stan Rogal takes formerly “popular” tunes (from various genres) and transforms them. Self-referentiality; mashups of the erudite and profane; allusions to other arts and sciences; the insertion and bending of biographical and historical facts; problematic snippets of philosophy and literary theory, quotes, and bastardizations; deploying non- or a-political language to challenge notions of how a poem should work; sampling; and off-kilter humour work together to update Rogal’s playlist for a present-day audience.

While his poems unavoidably serve to comment on the world today, Rogal resists a central message. The true emphasis of this collection is on the process of creation. It’s not the destination but the journey that is of significance. Not mere cover versions, not exactly parodies (though parodic), these poems are redactions, mutations, Frankenstein’s monsters … they resemble the original — somewhat — yet are also grossly different.

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