Sean Thomas Dougherty's most recent collection of poetry, All You Ask for Is Longing: New and Selected Poems, has received high praise from reviewer David Starkey of the Santa Barbara Independent. "Sean Thomas Dougherty’s 'New and Selected Poems' are chockablock with men and women down on their luck," says the review, "and he embraces them all, detailing their miseries and the small joys that make life almost bearable. 'You come to me wearing the rain,' Dougherty writes in 'Invocation,' 'swaying like a broken swing.'" For more than 20 years, Sean Thomas Dougherty has negotiated between modernist and avant-garde writing and more populist traditions that extend back to Walt Whitman. His subject matter ranges from basketball to Björk, from blue collar workers to Biggie Smalls, from Luciano Pavarotti to women waiting at a diner outside a prison in Upstate New York. Selecting from the best of eight previous collections, this 'New and Selected' reveals the powerful arc and development of Dougherty’s writing and establishes him as a voice of dissent for the future. Dougherty was recently featured in an hour-long documentary, "The Trouble with Poets," on the poetry scene of Erie, PA.  Premiered on WQLN public television last week, the film highlights an interview with Dougherty on the new book, as well as a reading of the book's poem "Oranges." The full documentary is available for viewing on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/124539952 Click here to read the full Santa Barbara Independent review. All You Ask for Is Longing is available at the BOA Bookstore.