B I C Y C L E S , C A N O E S , D R U M S by Dan Sklar
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(Paperback)
- Pub. Date: August 2008
- 192pp
- Sales Rank: 427,248
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: August 2008
- Publisher: Ibbetson Street Press
- Format: Paperback, 192pp
- Sales Rank: 427,248
- ISBN-13: 9780615244730
- ISBN: 0615244734
Synopsis
I take seriously what Ezra Pound said, "make poetry new." I do not want to write like anyone else, if that's possible. I want to create new forms of poetry. Sure, I have been influenced by many writers who write differently than I do, whether it is in style, theme, or topics, but I respect all forms and styles of poetry. I am experimenting all the time. Each time I write, it is as if it is my first time, like I have not done it before. The poem, and the way it is put together, becomes the object I am writing about as well as the subject. The way the poem is written is part of its meaning. All of it, I feel, comes from a deep and original, and yet common, place. I write to try to understand myself and the world and to question the things we just assume to be true, but mostly I write to remember the brightness of being alive.
Customer Reviews
The Refreshing Thingby Anonymous
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October 03, 2008: The refreshing thing about Sklar?s poetry is that it?s not that carefully worked-over, avant-garde, conundrum, riddle-twisted work that is less interested in getting across ideas and emotions than puzzling and impressing the reader. Sklar is Mr. Tell-It-As-It-Is. Which he himself is very aware of: ?My poems/do not win/poetry awards/because/they are/not poems/at all.? (?Wanted,? p.54). Which is not to say that they don?t move, touch you, communicate. By getting rid of all the technique games and getting to the human heart of things, Sklar is one of the most successful communicators around: ?I just want to clear off my desk,/listen to jazz and write and write/and type and type about things/that are important to me at this/moment like the fact that my son is 17 and in Catamarca,/Argentina for a year learning/tango and violin and...? (?Poetry is Just Not that Important to Me Now,? p. 126). His topics include the inner Thoreau, horses, funerals, war, bicycles, rain, aging,sex, opera, canoes (and the Iroquois), truck accidents....and there?s not a poem in this book that you can stop reading once you?ve read the first line. Unreadable poets should take a course in Sklar, get readable, read Bicycles, Canoes, Drums. Hugh Fox/Sept 2008
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