"Draglines" is pretty great. I'll have to go back through the BCR's and read what work of his we published. (I think it might have been fiction.) A lot of his themes would be really familiar to the parents of the Baby Boomers. He takes some really cool perspectives.
How I came about this book:
Patrick Hick's came and did a reading at BCU and had some books for sale. Maybe he only had the one chapbook, maybe he had more and I could only afford the chapbook; I don't remember. Anyway, I had him autograph my copy. Last night, I found something I had written on the back page of the chapbook that must have been something he said during his reading: Inspiration is that moment when you see things in a way no one else sees them. Totally love that! Thanks, former seashmore, for documenting that quote.
Some of my favorite poems are:
Lipstick Traces
The Corpse
The Four Elements
The Unimagined
Some quotes (which means, according to the copyright, that this is to be considered a critical article)
The Four Elements
"amid the geometry of the dead."
"The horizon is a peaceful monotone,"
This poem really struck me and I'm a huge fan of the symmetry between the second and third stanzas. It highlights how people all over are simultaneously different and the same. From an individual basis to a general one.
The Unimagined
"At the lighting of each dawn,/he ['my imaginary friend'] collects my old dreams/and carts them away."
No wonder I can't remember some of my dreams! A forgotten imaginary friend has stolen them away! (My imaginary friend is so forgotten and long gone that I don't remember having one. Unless Jonathon Crom has forever been a powerful figment of my imagination that once left me alone. I don't have my old school class pictures from elementary school to prove that he really existed; they're in Wisconsin.)
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The other day, we rearranged our front room. The couch fits perfectly in the little space in front of the windows. Which means it faces the stairs. Not a big fan of staring at the stairs, but it might grow on me. Of course, it would grow faster if we weren't going to be storing a wedding dress from the banister so my roommate's sister's fiancee doesn't see it. Keep in mind my roommates and I are all 100% single, "with no prospects that anyone can detect." (Utah Philips) Last night, I sat on the couch and wrote this poem:
The Stairs
As much as I'll hate
Staring at the stairs,
I suppose it beats
The table and folding chairs.
Soon the white dress
Will be hung
As a constant reminder
Of what is to come.
The struggles we'll
Have with their troubles;
How there will be triples,
Not doubles.
That looming bag
From the stairs--
We'll try to hide it
To stop the ripping of our hairs,
But it will
Be of no use.
We'll all still know
How men are obtuse.
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