I have found myself flipping through it all the time (but usually when the twins are napping) for an impromptu shot of delight. The book revives the persona of the downtown flâneur — it’s full of nods to Prince Street and Cafe Orlin and the Strand — and reading it feels like wandering around that pre-pandemic metropolis that we’re aching to get back to. From a business standpoint, the timing of books (and movies) tends to be arbitrary — they’re released when they’re ready — but every now and then a new one seems to dovetail with the cultural moment. Love and Other Poems is an example of that. It practically embodies the phrase 'breath of fresh air.' It comes to us in the midst of widespread loss and grief, with faint signals of hope on the horizon, but it nudges us (if I can borrow a line from a poem by the Nobel laureate Louise Glück) to 'risk joy / in the raw wind of the new world.' ... Dimitrov’s lines are clear and conversational, and if you happen to detect an immediate and uncanny resemblance to Frank O’Hara — the flow of city streets, the openheartedness, the easy swing of the words, the exclamation points — well, that’s intentional ... Dimitrov removes the academic armor of convolutedness and simply comes out with it — how he’s feeling, where he’s going, what he’s wanting. The result is refreshing, especially right now. His city and his stanzas bristle with life.

If hope were an object, it would be poet Alex Dimitrov's new book Love and Other Poems . In its entirety, the book itself is one long love poem — to New York City, to the moon, to the many 'scenes from our world' — but it's mostly about what it means to have hope, even when we feel like we're all alone ... Pleasure, annoyance, boredom, spiritual awakening — we feel it all. And as the poems travel through time, the poet's vulnerability and loneliness are palpable enough to, perhaps deliberately, make the reader feel less alone ... What is it about looking for love and spending time in this city that makes Dimitrov's book a symbol of hope? This too is answered in the poem when he writes, 'I love writing this and not knowing what I'll love next.' ... Love and Other Poems promises that every now and then, love will find us. And if it doesn't, the moon — and New York City — will always be right there.

... a remarkable exploration into poetry’s most notable tradition ... a symphony of individuality, an extravaganza of self-devotion, self-sacrifice and, above all, a desperation for reciprocity ... These lines portend a naked ambition, one that would cause even the famed confessionals mentioned throughout the work (most notably Plath) to writhe in envy. Simply put, Dimitrov manifests a speaker so translucently absorbed in his own possibilities that not even love can obstruct his grasp ... The work as a whole, whose sheer magnitude and determination may dub it among Wagnerian, Brucknerian, and Spectorian proportions, is, on its surface, the poetry of New York cityscapes and the vast horizons surrounding them ... shows Dimitrov’s persona at its most audacious and demanding. The poems romance us into puddles, existing as small, hopeful moats amidst the dry, irrelevant gossip that circle the current universe. It refuses clichéd, trite aphorisms, no matter the stakes.

... a remarkable study in hope at a time when hope might be in short supply ... Dimitrov explores ubiquitous themes—loneliness, death, and love—in this collection. What sets it apart is the matter-of-fact speaker, a Frank O’Hara-invoking New York City enthusiast who isn’t afraid to bare it all ... Dimitrov explores everything from the moon landing to the Pulse Orlando shooting, and somehow manages to squeeze an expansive litany of love in between ... Anyone would want to befriend this alternately hilarious and heartbreaking speaker ... In spite of its painful moments of deep despair, the collection ultimately lands on hope.

That Dimitrov has a lot to read is in no doubt; that he has something to say seems less certain ... There’s an old canard among parish priests that when one does not have much of anything to say for their Sunday sermon, they can always just give a homily about love. This book, as the title implies, is a homily about love, written for just the same reason ... It is a work that erases itself and restores itself in layers, a palimpsest of fortune cookie wisdom, a retort to the conversation of the passengers of that Cessna before it dashes itself against the soil: that, yes, Instagram poetry (and its heirs and acolytes) can, in Pinocchio-like fashion, grow into a real book ... If the work seems trite, it’s only because Dimitrov has worked exceptionally hard to make it so ... This is a challenging book to applaud, but still it is not without merit: there is a love of language here, and of reading, that is impossible to ignore. Nestled inside this book are a hundred others —Kerouac, O’Hara, Ginsburg, Ferlinghetti at the front—and there is an optimism in this work, especially in the changing winds of life as a gay man in America, that feels refreshing in an increasingly negative time ... It is a homily in need of refinement, yes, but about a topic that is evergreen precisely because it is ever-present ... One expects that, as Dimitrov climbs out of other work and further into his own, that his certain fourth book will have less 'Love,' but far more love, to its credit.

This collection—in a conversational style akin to Ross Gay’s and Frank O’Hara’s—at its core is a love poem: to the self, to the reader, to poetry, to New York City—to which the collection is dedicated—to O’Hara, and to life itself. Throughout this book, Dimitrov reflects on his enduring love for life with refreshing optimism ... In a year full of so much tragedy and loss for us all, Love and Other Poems feels more vital than ever in its playfulness, its humor, and its accessibility; it reminds us again and again to see all the beauty in this world and to approach even life’s smallest moments with a sense of wonder ... This collection is filled with humor and optimism, and yet Dimitrov is well-aware, too, of hardship and tragedy ... Dimitrov is not naïve; he is not ignorant about suffering but rather hyper-aware of it, and it is this awareness that allows him to find so much solace in the small and beautiful moments.

Dimitrov writes poems shaped by a cosmopolitan air of hip self-awareness. His third collection delivers candid snapshots of life for a gay thirtysomething in his city ... In a series of celestial-themed poems, Dimitrov matches perfect metaphors with profound reflections.

In a way, Love and Other Poems captures New York City with the same energy and intensity as O’Hara but reassesses the action to that of a contemporary poet ... A surprising aspect of Love and Other Poems is the attempt at coming to terms with humanity’s relationship with the stars. Alex Dimitrov’s poems, although starting at the terrestrial level, look outward toward the stars – beyond New York City, beyond our planet.

[A] joyous and captivating third collection. These memorably voiced lyric poems find his speakers expressing love for things local and cosmic ... The tension between connection and distance frequently finds humorous expression ... Meditations on humanity’s search for meaning are handled with wit and vulnerability, while the book’s final section, the 14-page 'Poem Written in a Cab,' breaks the fourth wall in a captivating performance of selfhood ... In this affecting collection, his most fully achieved thus far, Dimitrov provides the reader with a needed celebration of pleasures.