Dr. Philip Estes, an instructor of English in the School of Language and Literature at Louisiana Tech University, has just had his first full-length book of poems, “High Life,“ published by Horse Less Press. Poet and translator Johannes Goransson, an assistant professor of English at Notre Dame, said, “’I am on dead songbird patrol…’  Phil Estes’s poems start out as slacker jokes but then they go wrong. Sometimes they go so wrong that they become frightening and politically charged or become beautiful meditations on art. Or do both at the same time. ‘Mmm-hmm’ has never sounded as prophetic and poetic as in these snippets from a scary-funny middle America. Let’s call him the Mallarme of the Strip Mall.” Estes, an Ohio native, who received his Ph. D. in poetry from Oklahoma State University, has also been invited to read from his new work by Living Arts, a community arts center in Tulsa, and by Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri.  A local reading is being planned for Ruston in April. Estes’ poems have appeared in three chapbooks and in poetry journals including “Action Yes,” “Hayden’s Ferry Review” and “Willow Springs.” “High Life” is available through Horse Less Press: http://horselesspress.org/2016/02/19/arrived-estes-high-life-and-olszewskas-answering-machine/ and through Small Press Distribution: http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780990813972/high-life-.aspx. Written by Judith Roberts – jroberts@latech.edu