Review of Charles Atkinson poetry
Because We Are Men
Fossil Honey
The Only Cure I Know
World News, Local Weather
About Charles Atkinson
World News, Local Weather (2013)
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World News, Local Weather (ISBN 1-6222950-3-X, 32 pages, Finishing Line Press):
at
Finishing Line Press .
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This chapbook's manuscript was a deserved prizewinner in the 2013 poetry
contest sponsored by Finishing Line Press.
The poems are beautiful and powerful.
"Pronghorn, West of Rawlins" is particularly engaging, as it describes the way the poet used up one
of his nine lives in a steep and snowy descent on black ice.
I was lucky enough to hear Atkinson read on KUSP radio (see kusp.org for a podcast).
That poem especially caught my ear because I
was driving down a steep rain-slicked hill when I heard it.
Not only did it give a powerful description of his driving experience, but it concluded
with a deep-breath scene in nature when the driver could finally pull to a halt at the side of the road,
and could see from within his intact yet fragile skull:
At the snowfence
three pronghorn lift their delicate heads.
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This contrast gives the poem the graceful feeling of
of a
haibun,
even though it is not laid out as such.
- Other particular favorite poems include:
- "World News, Local Weather"
- "Paradise on Earth"
- "On the Water: (iv) Ocean Kayak"
The poet
Joseph Stroud writes:
| The poems in
World News, Local Weather
meld the political with the personal, and a narrative voice with a lyrical voice that is
unique to Charles Atkinson. The poems play out on a large canvas: Baghdad, Lhasa, San Quentin Prison
... but Atkinson's focus is always up-close, with a marvelous eye for detail.
|
Fossil Honey (2006)
| Buy
Fossil Honey (ISBN 0-9716373-9-3, 96 pages, Hummingbird Press):
- Order at the
Hummingbird Press web site.
- Or, ask your local book store to order this book of glorious poems.
See other Hummingbird Press poets:
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- Charles Atkinson's 4th collection of poems, a book in four parts.
- This very brave and open-hearted book of quiet poignancy tells of the coping with the separation from
a spouse, the death of each parent, and the challenges of parenting two sons.
- Particular favorite poems include:
- "The Question"
- "Ring Ceremony"
- "Letters I Might Have Sent My Son" (particularly the third section)
- "Grown Up"
- "Spiritual Practice"
- In his publication-party reading (November 16, 2006), he read poems from each of the four parts.
The wonderful reading was passionately open-hearted, honest, and vulnerable.
The poems were read and heard with such presence and attention.
The audience was large and entranced, paying full, often breath-held attention to the bravery
of the poems and the reader.
The poems he chose to read were:
- "Fragmentary iv: lost"
- "Ring Ceremony"
- "Water: Two Mountain Meditations"
- "Grown Up"
- "What We Mean When We Say Karma"
- "Multiplication Practice"
- "What Angel"
- "Letters I Might Have Sent My Son"
- "Greeting Grown Sons"
- "Northern Fire"
- Part iv (Root Fear) of "Let Go"
- "Spiritual Practice"
- "Haircut"
- "First Warmth and Last"
- "Father Fragments"
- "Reading the River"
- Acknowledges first publications in:
- Alligator Juniper
- Charlotte Poetry Review
- Chester Jones National Poetry Competition
- Comstock Review
- Dogwood
- E
- Marlboro Review
- Nimrod
- Passager
- Peregrine
- Quarry West
- Runes
- Sow's Ear
- Two Rivers Review
- Zone 3
Because We Are Men (2006)
- Charles Atkinson's third volume.
- Issued as Vol. XVI, No 1, of The Sow's Ear Poetry Review.
- Published in 2006 as No. 14 in The Sow's Ear Poetry Review Chapbook Series.
- Awarded the Sow's Ear Poetry Prize.
- Dedication: "for my brothers, George and Rich, because we are men"
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14 poems in 23 pages (1.6 pages/poem).
- Often 4 lines/stanza or 5 lines/stanza.
- Acknowledges first publications in:
- Bearing Witness
- Borderlands
- E where his poem "Because We Are Men" won the Emily Dickinson Award.
- The Sow's Ear Poetry Review
- Winningwriters.com
The Only Cure I Know (1991)
- Charles Atkinson's first collection,
- Received the American Book Series award for poetry.
- Acknowledges first publications in:
- Cumberland Poetry Review
- B.M. Denny Prize Anthology
- Negative Capability
- Nimrod
- Pennsylvania Review
- Poet Lore
- Poetry with "Plum" and "To Split a Round of Oak".
- Poetry Northwest
- Poets and Writers
- Quarry West
- River Styx
- Southern California Anthology
- Southern Poetry Review
- The Sow's Ear
- Tar River Review
- Virginia Quarterly Review
- Zone 3
About Charles Atkinson
- Charles Atkinson's first collection,
The Only Cure I Know, received the American Book Series award for poetry.
- His chapbook, The Best of Us on Fire, won the Wayland Press competition.
- His third volume,
Because We Are Men, was awarded the Sow's Ear Poetry Prize.
- His 4th collection is
Fossil Honey.
- He has also received the Stanford Prize, the Comstock Review Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award (SUNY Farmingdale),
the Emily Dickinson Award (Universities West Press) and The Ledge Poetry Prize, and was a
prizewinner in the 2013 Finishing Line Press poetry contest.
- He is a former UCSC creative writing lecturer is a prizewinner in this year's poetry
University of California, Santa Cruz.
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Links and Books.
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