Midwestern fictionista Tom Janikowski has crafted a collection of poetry drawn from his experiences working with people who have made bad choices - addicts, convicts, users, and the like. Written over the span of two years on the streets of the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa, the poems include many that appeared at his collaborative poetry site, "the lost beat," where he writes with his cousin, the poet Denise Janikowski-Krewal.