David Anthony Sam's Blog, page 188
August 27, 2016
Thank you to those who downloaded my books
For the 61 who’ve taken advantage of my offer of free Kindle poetry books (over 8/28) please review them on Amazon.
A Fine Early Collection by Claudia Emerson
Pharaoh, Pharaoh by Claudia Emerson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Claudia Emerson’s untimely death leaves me wondering what wonderful poetry she would have written. Luckily, we have a number of outstanding collections. “Pharaoh, Pharaoh,” while published nearly 20 years ago, remains a deeply moving collection of vignettes. Emerson faces death and illness with a cold eye for detail but a heart filled with empathy.
The phrasing feels conversational, but then sudden brilliant gems arise:
Veins as “the dispassionate cursive on the backs/of her hands.” A coffin “inhaled the earth.” A sewing needle” its only eye worn wide, diminishing.”
She remembers a woman lost in death, imagining her (as we imagine Emerson) flooring the gas pedal on a wild car as she is “gone before/this fire consumes itself in the void from which she rises.”
This is a fine collection, worth living with for some time.
August 26, 2016
Touch: The Journal of Healing has published 2 of my poems in its Spring/Summer 2016 issue
Touch: The Journal of Healing has published 2 of my poems in its Spring/Summer 2016 issue:
August 24, 2016
Two of my poetry collections are free on Kindle until August 28.
Two of my poetry collections are free on Kindle until August 28.
My Amazon author page is here:
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00K82RUTY
August 23, 2016
To celebrate the Fall semester–my last– I am offering the Kindle version of my 2 poetry collections free Aug 24-28
To celebrate the Fall semester–my last– I am offering the Kindle version of my 2 poetry collections free Aug 24-28:
Memories in Clay, Dreams of Wolves
and
August 20, 2016
The Arlington Literary Journal will publish 3 of my poems in Issue 94.
The Arlington Literary Journal will publish 3 of my poems in Issue 94.
August 19, 2016
My poem “Urbanity” has been published on Rust+Moth.
My poem “Urbanity” has been published on Rust+Moth.
August 17, 2016
Red Savina Review has accepted my poem “Prayer of Vapor” for future publication.
Red Savina Review has accepted my poem “Prayer of Vapor” for future publication.
August 7, 2016
A Collection of Early Poems by Lola Ridge
The Ghetto and Other Poems by Lola Ridge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This collection of early poems by Lola Ridge is not up to the quality of Sun-Up, but the title poem and several others hows the promise of Ridge’s later work. I am not sure why she gets such little recognition, except that her revolutionary leftism is objectionable to many.
August 5, 2016
Pattiann Rogers mends the tears we have made between ourselves and our universe
Firekeeper: New & Selected Poems by Pattiann Rogers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
In this selection of poems published between 1981 and 1994, Pattiann Rogers reveals the beatification of the natural world and the seer of that world in the interaction of observer and observed. Yes she is more comfortable with science than most contemporary poets who pretend that there is a great divide in the beauty witnessed by both. Rogers knows better as she invests the natural world with love and lust and fills her rooms and her very body with the universe. Her language has a clarity that is not simple and a simplicity that is not flaccid. I recommend her work for those who love great poetry, who love the natural world, and who want to see someone mend the tears we have made in ourselves and between ourselves and our universe.
