Charming, funny, romantic, and fulfilling, Love and Other Bullshit is the culmination of a life spent writing poetry. Heavily influenced by the lyrical work of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Blackburn has done the impossible, cementing rhythmic verse's place in the twenty-first century. Absurd and irreverent his broad range of work seems almost boundless in its depth. The haunting final lines of "To Fear" leave one longing for more. "Thee take heed - If you never Come upon My tale to read. Know only this About my life, I loved I lived, But at length All I am, Is a murderous mystery Who used to be a man." As does the beauty of his "To Anna of Passion." "Her skin is like - A shadow on glass, Pale and white Like an angel's mask. ... She leaves them all - Asking for more, And yet she finds it all An awful bore. Smarter still - Than her better parts, She doesn't even try To break their hearts." By contrast in such pithy satire as "Man Eater" Blackburn gives one pause as to whether it is nothing more than a dirty limerick as he lampoons himself to great effect. "There was one there So pretty in pink, That it would hurt To stop and wink. No exaggeration - Her bosom was grand, Much too much For only one hand. Her lips of silk - So soft with lace, Would make any man Want to suck her face." Yet Blackburn's crowning achievement remains his lengthy thirty-five stanza narrative poem "Taken for a Pearl." Heartbreaking, romantic, and explosive, it feeds off a core of black comedy. "A lamp - A chair, That bitch had gone crazy And just didn't care. She screamed and shouted - And threw some more, I said, "Keep it coming You dirty whore " But soon she tired of this And slumped down onto the floor, Wishing for less And wanting for more." Arthur Blackburn's Love and Other Bullshit leaves the reader at the apex of inspiration looking down at one's own self from new perspectives through a different kind of eyes. It challenges the reader to decide whether they like what they see and believe.