"The Sleep of Reason" plunges us into a macabre world where good impulses bring on evil consequences a world not unlike our own. In David Gewanter's alternately delightful and startling poems, allegory comes alive and stalks a bookstore's musty aisles, comedians eviscerate their families for a laugh, lovers love each other for withholding affection, and theaters collapse on audiences hungry for spectacle. Amidst such surreal subjects, Gewanter's delicate musicality and keen sense of humor sparkle; his inquisition regarding a fallen world becomes a dark comedy of errors haunted by the most...
"The Sleep of Reason" plunges us into a macabre world where good impulses bring on evil consequences a world not unlike our own. In David Gewanter's a...
his heavy boot, the heel come off. A cobbler's shop
appears, and I buy the black nails, the dwarf's hammer, glue and strapping.
I work hard on it, bending there
until he speaks and walks on.
But as he is dead, his voice and step
make no sound.
In his third book of poems, David Gewanter takes on wartime America, showing our personal costs and inextricable complicities. The constructs of our social lives, the conventions of our political values, the ambitions of our private fantasies all these collide comically and...
From "Three at 4:43"
And here comes my friend, limping on
his heavy boot, the heel come off. A cobbler's shop
Guided by a moral vision to document human experience, this unique collection takes raw historical materials--newspaper articles, autobiography and letters, court testimony, a convict ledger, and even a menu--and shapes them into sonnets, ballads, free verse, and prose poems.
Guided by a moral vision to document human experience, this unique collection takes raw historical materials--newspaper articles, autobiography and le...
