Truckstop Soliliquies and Honky-Tonk Hymns

Verless Doran's uniqueness lies in his innate ability to find glory and passion in the most mundane of life's moments, and translate those moments to his readers with a precision and clarity rarely found today. He is as ruthless with the care and attention that he gives to his characters as he is selfless with the honesty of language used to bring them to life. His words are brave and efficient, sifting through torn meat and broken bones to create murals and monuments of the human experience. Doran's stories are stripped down, distilled, removed of all things gratuitous or pretentious. Yet, for all this nakedness it is the reader who is left feeling exposed, as if he knows all your dirty secrets-and loves you anyway. Though his poems are served raw and un-sugarcoated, he tempers them with warm milk compassion, and butter-like hope. His work is the grit and gravel lodged in a boot, and a mamaw rocking a baby to sleep; a black eye suffered in a barroom brawl, and a wife who nurses it when you get home.