In Loving Memory of Ian Ganassi and his Grand Poetry

And They Make It Sound So Easy

I’d rather gather ‘round the campfire,
Join the campfire girls.

They make great cheese.

And that’s the way I like to peel my onions.

The great man is he who digs
Into the right stuff at the right time.

Life kills us in the end,
No matter where you dig.

All its little accidental and accentual broken ideas of boredom,
The unintended repetitions, chimes, misprints, odd typography,
The enraging and engorging failures
Of systems and otherwise . . .

Put on your lineman boots and go climb a pole.

It was an armature, but a friendly sort of armature.

The big striped larvae eating through the Styrofoam
Were quite disgusting.

Under construction, with thick glasses.

Something about “Coke bottle glasses?”
I’m not sure.

Where am I supposed to be, and when?
And with whom?

“Stare up into the light,” she said.
“Your hair has become very white,” I said

The signs were lit for 12:30 p.m.,
But by then it was obsessive-compulsive,

In excess. Wake up, they shouted, in my ear.

Beats your threatening demons,

Your resident monsters,

But not decisively.

---

5/9/2026

Ian Ganassi’s work has appeared in over 100 journals, such as New American Writing, Survision, Home Planet News, and The Yale Review, among many notable others. His first full length collection, Mean Numbers (Isolibris/China Grove Press, 2016), as well as his second collection, True for the Moment (David Robert Books, 2023), are available online. His stellar third collection, By This Time (Finishing Line Press, 2024), can be found here. Selections from Ganassi's collaboration with a painter Laura Bell can be found at https://www.thecorpses.com/. Ganassi was a longtime resident of New Haven, Connecticut.

On behalf of all the Editors of The Skinny Poetry Journal, and especially poet Naomi Ayala, who was blessed to count Brother Ganassi as a friend, we honor him with this re-publication of his compelling work, first published here in 2024.

Ian Ganassi at a book party and poetry reading in the Bronx for Mean Numbers in 2016. Photo credit: Laura Bell ⓒ 2026 .

Ian Ganassi was a poet of great depth--and also, a gifted scholar, teacher, and percussionist. His poems appeared in many literary magazines, including the Yale Review and New American Writing; his poem “Blunt Trauma” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize; and his translations from Virgil’s Aeneid appeared in the New England Review. Ganassi’s first poetry collection, Mean Numbers, was published in 2016; his second collection, True for the Moment, in 2023; and his third, By This Time, in 2024.