Poetry in one form or another has been around almost as long as language. We have used it to communicate our joys and heartbreaks, our victories and our losses. But fear has also been a constant companion, and our ghost stories and monsters stretch their claws back into history as far as the eyes can see. The Configuration Discordant is an exploration of not only that fear, but of our global journey through poetry. One hundred poems exploring 75+ forms of poetic expression from the humble haiku to the mysterious Qasida. Only through a full examination of our own fears and creative outlets can we ever hope to master, or give fully into, either.... 

From the introduction by Angela Yuriko Smith:
"'I release the bones.' This is a line from “Begging for Me,” a poem you will be introduced to very soon. It sums up the spirit of this collection of poetry. In the following pages all manner of horror will become exposed like a corpse bobbing in a dark sea. I have a warning for you: there is madness ahead.

"John Baltisberger explores the visceral dark. He probes the underbelly of the demon, breathes in the acrid odor of fear and regurgitates it here in this book. Much of the work drifts to fall in layers of meaning. They resurface like silt in murky water, winking under a dim sun to create new currents of thought. One of these is 'Imposter Syndrome.'

"The title alone is sufficient to remind me of the pain inherent in the struggle to fit in. The awkward pretense of fun required to be ‘one of us’ bleeds from the page like so many adolescent tears...but aside from the pain, there is a satisfactory vengeance. Baltisberger lets loose a dark fantasy upon the nightmare, transferring the problem from ‘us’ to ‘them.’"