Danoski's 'Mansion of Madness' (SHOCK WAVES:Letters from the Edge Published by Vantage Press, New York, 1987, pp. 55, $6.95 ISBN 0-533-07281-6, Hardback) Shock Waves: Letters From The Edge is Joseph V. Danoski’s first collection of poems, under his pen name, Jonathan Konrad. The poems reveal ‘the strange and inverted world’ of Danoski, ‘poet of the nuclear age’. The first poem, and one of finest in this collection, describes that the poet is “a stranger with stranger ways”: I’m the most charming of charmers When people play the game I say, Or a soldier in my armor- Standing so close yet so far away (“The Dead of Night”, p. 1) Some of the most striking effects and shock waves the poet creates through subtle incongruities: Let us live the living night, Do the dance of dark delight: Give your life To live the rite Of the living night! (“The Rite of the Living Night”, p. 5) Danoski’s “Mansion of Madness” is blended “with gardens of grandeur”. The poet is ...