We were told that power is a shield, but I’ve found it’s more of a glass house—transparent, fragile, and freezing at night. We’ve watched the "Kings" move through marble halls, seen the way they wear their sins like custom tailoring, and whispered about the women who finally brought them to their knees. But what happens in the stillness between the pages? Verses of the Vices is a descent. It is a collection of seven autopsies performed on the hearts of men who thought they were untouchable. These poems are for the ones who look at a throne and see a cage. For the ones who know that wrath is just a mask for grief, and that gluttony is just a hunger for a home that doesn't exist. From the suffocating luxury of Smoke in Suit to the raw, quiet surrender of What the Fire Forgot, this collection maps the distance between who these men are and who they become when the lights go out. They say money can’t buy a soul, but it can certainly build a beautiful place to lose one. Welcome to the wreckage. It’s more beautiful than you were led to believe. Even the gods bleed when they love. — A.V.