Cover Image:  Dusk in Piccadilly Circus, London (Photo by Jason Roush, 1997)	"Fasten your seatbelt. Jason Roush, at the wheel of a 2004 Constellation, is about to take you there. This maker of pyrotechnic nocturnes pricks out patterns of imagery and sound with the combined skills of the jeweler and folk-rock star, showing us how to be wise and fresh in the same breath. Ohio, which seems to be the Poetry State, adds a new brilliant to the crown that already boasts Hart Crane, James Wright, Richard Howard, and Rita Dove." —Alfred Corn, author of Atlas and Contradictions   "There's something exceptionally clean about these poems. Though emotional they aren't messy, though full of regular young stuff, they're more fairytale than worldly. Jason's not at all like Rilke, but he's writing on a very light edge that kind of twinkles—nearly sad about being alive, yet consumed with taking a picture."   —Eileen Myles, author of Sorry, Tree     "Meticulous, candid, poised, this outstanding first book has the passion and cool of art. Jason Roush is a striking, genuine new talent, and After Hours is a wonderful read." —Robert Pinsky, author of Gulf Music
Jason Roush teaches writing, literature, and cultural studies at Emerson College. His poems, criticism, and other writings have appeared in Best Gay Poetry 2008, Bay Windows, Breakwater Review, Brooklyn Review, Cimarron Review, The Fossil Record, The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, The James White Review, Lambda Book Report, Out Magazine, Provincetown Magazine, 236, Verse Daily, and the anthology This New Breed: Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians 2. He is the author of two other books of poetry, Breezeway (2007) and Crosstown (2009). He can be reached via e-mail at: ProfRoush@aol.com (Web text and images protected under copyright, 2009)	(Author Photo by Paul Rivenberg, 2003)