Creature Way

Angebote / Angebote:

I once included Harley Elliott in a group I referred to as "Poets of the 6th Principle Meridian" (the north-south line used as a base for the Public Land Survey System that laid out the hatch-work of green and brown quadrangles we see as we fly over heartland America). He has lived for many years within a stone's throw of that meridian and his poems often speak as straight as a section-line road about the beating hearts of prairie denizens. The forms of the poems on the pages of Creature Way put me in mind of that characterization, short line lengths make the poems on their pages into graphic depictions of prairie perspectives, apparently simple words put together in what appear to be simple ways are revealed by attentive reading to express insightful truths as inter- twined and intense as the tillering subsurface webs that sustain prairie grasses through drought and fire and flood. You owe yourself this conversation with Harley Elliott." -Roy Beckemeyer, Author of Mouth Brimming Over (Blue Cedar Press, 2019)"Few poets can meditate on a prairie scene (or any scene) with Harley's wicked, intelligent wit. For instance, when climbing through a barbwire fence following a lovely woman, Harley writes, "If she turns and / parts the wires for you / call the preacher." That's all Harley: voice and smarts and humility and romance, all at once." -Kevin Rabas (Poet Laureate of Kansas, 2017- 2019), All That Jazz¿"Harley Elliott is a homespun philosopher with a gifted earand the heart of a laughing scavenger." -Steven Hind"Harley Elliott is the poet who made me want to be a poet. His new book of revelations, Creature Way, continues to interrogate the relationship between humans and other living beings--including stones. The poem "Turquoise" asserts, Some say it looks like sky. / Some say it is sky." Artifice collapses. This is an essential book about the cosmos from the poet who changed my life. " -Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate