Here’s a part of my review of Lee Bains’s debut book of poetry, Work Lunch, which was released today (10/13/2026):

To read these poems is to be regaled with tastes, to savor pulled pork that has “the texture of the ropy sawdust that unspools when a dull blade / chews up a rained-on board.” It is to learn more than you ever dreamed there was to know about the Greek-owned hot dog stands in Birmingham, and that Grandmama – even when given the chance to go “to the Bright Star / or the Red Lobster, she’d usually just / rather a good hot dog and some potato chips.” It is to learn how Birmingham’s early Greek immigrants managed to “transform wieners on whitebread into a cornerstone / of a blue-collar city’s unlikely culinary cathedral.” It is to remind us of the diversity of the hot dog stand clientele and to remind us that the word “Mediterranean” translates to “Middle of the Earth.”

But food is just a touchstone for Work Lunch. It’s a passionate consideration of our world and our individual places in it. Read the full review here: Work Lunch – Alabama Writers’ Forum