Jason Baldinger’s street-wise, Pittsburgh-hearted, big-river-throated poetry collection The Lower Forty-Eight is the book you’d get if Kerouac and Whitman loaded into a Pinto and hit the road with iced-down six-packs on the back seat and a bobble-head Neruda on the dash. These poems pick up hitchhikers and talk to strangers. These poems long for home as they roll away from it. These poems celebrate and weep and rage and dance through a landscape as huge and mortal as the voice that carries it. These poems and this poet are the perfect heart-wise companions for anyone looking for a beautiful ride. —Lori Jakiela, author of The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious In The Lower Forty-Eight, Jason Baldinger travels across space and time, having a shot and a beer with as many ghosts as flesh-and-blood locals. To Baldinger, rich histories of music, politics, and terrain wrestle with the downtrodden present, as the speaker of these insightful poems is a vagabond savoring Points A and B and everything in between. Baldinger leads us through warts-and-all poetry of place, uncovering the warped union of popular and unpopular culture that continues to poke holes in the American Dream. —Daniel M. Shapiro, author of How the Potato Chip Was Invented - from Amzon