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136 pages, 5 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches, 2004
$16.00 paper, 0-87745-879-0, 978-0-87745-879-1
“Hazners’ Carlyle is an imagination made carnate, then given short-pants and free rein. The result is a rumbustious meta-poetic Mad Hatter’s tea party: appealing equally to the adult and child sides of the mind. ‘His biddy, his—here / comes a dream—.’”—Mary Jo Bang, author of Louise in Love
“‘We live in the mind. . . [and] if we live in the mind, we live with the imagination,’ says Stevens, naturally. Time spent with Dainis Hazners’ imaginary friend Mr. C goes beyond life-affirmation. This interior epic is so sonically—‘his song is like a forge / at full fire’—and conceptually animate that I feel augmented, awakened to a living that is simultaneously ‘many-shaded white’ and —sprung with darkness.’”—Ben Doyle, author of Radio, Radio
At first glance these poems (which read like one long odyssey) seem sweet and peaceful—like taking a walk in the woods. But then, things turn darker: a storm blows in—and with it some Aliens, Ghost and Ghoul, the Hanging Man. Luckily, Carlyle has a few good friends such as Ruth, the Hag, the Boy, who are staunch and true and faithful. A whistling-in-the-dark suspense alternately stimulates and enervates the witness.
“Carlyle is spore, and mild. / He is swoon & sherbet.” Endearing and kind, if not actually cruel, he is also cold and strange. He shapeshifts, transforming into Magician and Jester, Surgeon and Scientist, Cloud; he studies fire and mirrors and bores holes in his own skull, looking for heaven. Throughout his many adventures, which range from the ludicrous to the life-threatening, he flies into the light and carries the reader with him on his perplexing and fanciful journey.
Dainis Hazners lives near Story, Wyoming; for ten years he was co-owner of an independent bookshop in Sheridan. He has been the recipient of an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry and three fellowships from the Wyoming Arts Council. His work has been published in a variety of journals, including the Crab Creek Review, Plains Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, and Connecticut River Review, and in the anthologies Visions of Wyoming, If You Would Love Wyoming, and Deep West: A Wyoming Literary Guide. This is his first book.
In Carlyle's universe, the stars
are inured to speculation—
When Carlyle takes a stroll
through his universe
with his hands folded
behind his back—see
how they make an L
for love?—with his cheeks
puffed out he is whistling
in the dark a tune
nobody ever heard before,
but with which, after—all
will become enchanted. |
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