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• When life is a personal movie, a poet is his own reviewer. Mike Lally's title,"It's Not Nostalgia," suggests that if he had to do it again, he wouldn't. What he does here is lay his life bare, to himself and anyone who listens. His life is wild and atypical, from playing piano with his feet in a 'Fifties band, to poet and protester in the 'Sixties, bisexual, and movie actor, all the while cupid's priest. None of it is fiction. He was where the action was, in front of whatever parade streamed from the spiritual lobes of a decade, trying to supply direction to his life and the undirected forces of his time. What does HE get out of living like a leaf in a windstorm? The ride, the ride. What he gives me, by example, is the courage to tell myself what I hide from myself. Loss is what it means to live in interesting times. There are things he hasn't resolved, failing his first marriage; why he needs to feel and be known as hip. But there's more that he's unravelled--in particular, the knowledge that it's the narrative itself that creates meaning from experience. His writing is aesthetically and historically true; and he pays a price for telling it straight. As he says, of himself, "...he had missed his chance for fame and lasting authority when he had decided to remain true to his experiences and perceptions. Distortion was the basis for success,..." That is the sound of an American needle piercing an Irish heart.

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