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Critical Review of ‘The Soul of A Young Man’

Maneos’ ambitious project captures the varied, fleeting moods of his youthful persona–direct, lyrical, contemplative, generous, melancholy, frenzied, intensely alive… At times the musicality of the soaring line may recall Swinburne and D.H. Lawrence, but one also thinks of the Beat Poets and their offspring in rock lyric and ballad down to the present. Indeed, many of the poems have the aura of lyrics to an unwritten love song. The line as a rhythmic whole appears as the unit of meaning. Maneos succeeds in setting timeless themes of youth, freedom, and passion against the world of ancient Greece and Italy with which he feels such deep kinship. But his allusions range across the historical landscape and sparkle with precision. – John Paul Russo, editor Italian Americana

Blood, not ink, drips from the quill of Pietros. Maneos’ intense poems awaken the spirit and excite the heart. He uses a Whitmanesque style to convey the passionate emotions of his youth. Maneos successfully fuses classical, Christian and contemporary imagery within his poetry; this masterful work establishes him as an adroit poetic craftsman. – Tim Minear, Writer

Pietros Maneos adopts a de facto transcendental style in his premiere anthology The Soul of A Young Man. His earthy, raw poems are redolent of past poets like Pablo Neruda and Arthur Rimbaud. Maneos’ work is always fiery, fervid, and elemental forcing the reader to confront anguish, joy, love, lust, and vanity in their most primitive forms. His premiere work is loaded with entertainment and ambition. This luminous collection will shine for years to come. – Melissa C. Stanley, Writer

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Critical Review of ‘Poems of Blood and Passion’

Pietros Maneos delivers an exciting, emotional, deeply felt collection: POEMS of BLOOD and PASSION. Unrestrained, but not unaware, Mr. Maneos plunges his pen straight through our hearts, lavishly lamenting his lost love, Natalia. Unwilling to entertain even the notion of complacency, Maneos extracts and creates, weaving and interweaving witty ironies and contradictions. What impresses most: Pietros Maneos is on a consistent level, at all times. Intense, intense, intense. No chance for rest; the reader is assaulted, challenged, propelled and fulfilled. A raging read, from beginning to end. Masterfully done. – Michael Tsangaris

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Critical Review of ‘American Bards & The London Reviewer’


Pietros Maneos is my favorite poet, because he’s ready to go to the barricades, carrying only bricks, stones and his own poetic outrage. Bravo! – Steven Pressfield, Author of Gates of Fire, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and The Profession.

The Bukowski section is visceral in its mastery. I felt like I was positioned over the vat of Bukowski goo; each time you dunked my head into the toxin – increasingly unbearable with each dunk – you pulled me up at the very second before I expired. The light and air was a burst of joy, made more pleasurable by the contrast to what preceded. Your words imparted literal physical warmth, and I was alternately throbbing at the head, chest, abdomen, and groin – and tapping my feet and fingers! There was much I savored, much I nodded along with. Three passages were particularly lovely: the saber-like moon, the words more like blood than ink, and our days as a tally of our Passions. Beautiful. – Amanda Hall, Poet, Author of Endless Wait for Now and the forthcoming The Gift of Life: An Epic in Verse.

I have chosen to review this Poem anonymously, because I fear that if this Satire receives any due attention, it will become highly controversial, and I am not one for controversy; though I do not agree with Mr. Maneos on many issues, specifically his renunciation of T.S. Eliot, I cannot deny his literary genius, his mastery of euphony, alliteration and metaphor. This work is nothing less than an epic tour de force, and it is my estimation that posterity will regard it as such, placing it among the most consequential Poems of the 21st century’s opening act. – Anonymous

You deserve to be recognized as the next Lord Byron. And you deserve to die in Greece. – Roman Payne, author of Crepuscule and Rooftop Soliloquy.

I finished reading your Satire, and loved it. The Bukowski section is powerful. All of the sections are excellent and unique in their own ways. I especially like how you take on various voices and personas to counter the chosen poets. There is something very ‘Odyssey’ like about this Satire, it is a journey between two worlds: the ideal, mythological, historical world and the ‘real’ world. You infuse our real world with positive sentiments, sometimes from far off lands. You counter and neutralize the negative outlook on life, with your picturesque and passionate voice. The yin yang concept is extremely successful and I congratulate you! – Gabriela Dellosso, Painter.