Pyramid Skeem - Jesse the Tree Noah Anthony Mezzacappa
Writer/filmmaker Noah Anthony Mezzacappa takes a people-first approach. Based in New York City and hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, the many people and places he’s encountered have only made him more curious about you.
A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Mezzacappa's short films have played in festivals across the US, and he has collaborated on music videos with artists from labels like Backwoodz Studioz, Strange Famous Records, and Three Dollar Pistol Music. A good working relationship is the foundation of his practice, and he strives to bring his clients’ personalities and sensibilities to the forefront of his work.
In addition to his filmography, Mezzacappa is an accomplished writer. He is the author of a poetry chapbook, COUNT THE DARK (Bottlecap Press, 2023), and more of his work appears in New Feathers Anthology, San Pedro River Review, and WayWords, with forthcoming publications in HAD, The Gravity of the Thing, and Lullwater Review.
An old man runs his fingers through a candle flame. A young boy carves a crucifix into his skin. A dream brings back memories of a haunted house. ‘I told you, right? That / I’ve been wearing my glasses / again.’ So begins Count the Dark, a collection of poems intent on unearthing what would rather stay hidden: the word on the tip of the tongue, the thought in the back of the mind, the shape in the corner of the eye.
Set against a backdrop of highways, nursing homes, and ghost towns, the twenty-three poems in this collection present an array of characters and narrators both foreign and familiar, each of whom is confronted with some form of loss—of love, of life, of sense. In its wake they all struggle for solid ground, only to find more water beneath. At its core, Count the Dark asks us, what’s left in the space left behind?