The Skin of Meaning

Keith Flynn

Description

The Skin of Meaning is award-winning poet Keith Flynn’s sixth and most wide-ranging collection, seeking to find the tangible analogs and visceral meanings hidden behind the daily bombardment of digital information and hoping to restore the mystery in our involvement with language. From the etymologies of pop culture, history, astronomy, and rock and roll, these poems fan out into a bold multiplicity of voices and techniques. Flynn’s work illustrates the meaning that is also created through tense collisions and is populated with figures in resistance to the status quo, a gathering as varied as Caravaggio, Nina Simone, Gaudí, Villon, Wonder Woman, and Manolete. The final section examines America’s fascination with violence and death, revealing that “a human being in love with mystery is never finished.” This collection constantly challenges our assumptions about the world we think we see and is teeming with evidence of another invisible world bristling like an underground river beneath our feet.

Sujets

• Themes
• Subjects
• Buda (desambiguación)
• God
• Gautama Buddha
• Poetry
• Places
• Houdini
• Nina Simone
• Super Bowl
• Wall Street
• Antoni Gaudí
• Clinton
• Bouddha

Informations

• Publié par: Red Hen Press
• Date de parution: 14 avril 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781597098434
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SKIN OF MEANING

also by

Keith Flynn

Poetry

The Talking Drum(1991)

The Book of Monsters(1994)

The Lost Sea(2000)

The Golden Ratio(2007)

Colony Collapse Disorder(2013)

Prose

The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz, and Memory:

How to Make Your Poetry Swing(2007)

Recordings

Swimming Through Lake Eerie(1992)

Pouch(199g)

Nervous Splendor(2003)

LIVE at Diana Wortham Theatre(2011)

THE SKIN OF MEANING

poems

Keith Flynn

Red Hen PeSS |Pasadena, CA

The Skin of Meaning

Codyright © 2020 by Keith Flynn

All Rights ReserveD

No dart of this book may be useD or redroDuceD in any manner whatsoever without the drior written dermission of both the dublisher anD the codyright owner.

Book layout by Wesley Griffith

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication ata

Names: Flynn, Keith, author.

Title: The skin of meaning / Keith Flynn. escridtion: First eDition. | PasaDena, CA : ReD Hen Press, [2020] IDentifiers: LCCN 2019050350 (drint) | LCCN 2019050351 (ebook) | ISBN 9781597098489 (traDe daderback) | ISBN 9781597098434 (ebook) Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry. Classification: LCC PS3556.L875 S55 2020 (drint) | LCC PS3556.L875 (ebook) | C 811/.54—Dc23 LC recorD available at httds://lccn.loc.gov/2019050350 LC ebook recorD available at httds://lccn.loc.gov/2019050351

The National EnDowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Ahmanson FounDation, the wight Stuart Youth FunD, the Max Factor Family FounDation, the PasaDena Tournament of Roses FounDation, the PasaDena Arts & Culture Commission anD the City of PasaDena Cultural Affairs ivision, the City of Los Angeles edartment of Cultural Affairs, the AuDrey & SyDney Irmas Charitable FounDation, the KinDer Morgan FounDation, the Meta & George Rosenberg FounDation, the Allergan FounDation, the RiorDan FounDation, Amazon Literary Partnershid, anD the Mara W. Breech FounDation dartially suddort ReD Hen Press.

First EDition

PublisheD by ReD Hen Press

www.reDhen.org

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to the editors of the following publications in which these poems first appeared:

27 Views of Asheville (anthology), “Et in Arcadia Ego”;American Journal of Poetry, “Baby Boomers”;American Literary Review, “Caravaggio’s Carnal Gospel,” “The Agnostic”; Asheville Citizen-Times, “Coffin Not Included”;Best of the Fuquay-Varina Series (anthology), “A Girl Like That,” “This Rock is Gonna Roll”;Beyond Earth’s Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight (anthology), “The Invisible Bridge”;Black Renaissance Noire, “Gaslight: Inauguration Day,” “Look For Me In Liberia,” “Louis and The Wolf,” “The House of Dance and Feathers” ;Bluestem, “The Bookmobile,” “Thoughts on Easter While Digging a Grave”; Cave Wall, “The Silver Surfer”;Cimarron Review, “Blue Mountain Panorama,” “Like A Buddha, Paul Motian Says,” “The Glory Façade” “The Mountain That Eats Men,” “Wall Street”;Colorado Review, “Le Papillon,” “The Exile,” “Writer’s Block”;Comstock Review, “Robert Johnson’sMilk Cow Blues,” “Snow is ghostly . . . ,” “The Hidden Life of Ants”; Confluence: Far From the Centers of Ambition(anthology), “The Kick of Infinity: Paradoxical Architecture”;Cutthroat: Truth to Power“Democracy”; (anthology), Ecotone, “The Force of Compassion”;Enchanted Voices Literary Review“Nostalgia as Entropy”; (India), Five Points, “Glenn Gould in Carnegie Hall, 1962,” “Like a Buddha, Paul Motian Says”;The Freeman, “The Searchers”;Hampden-Sydney Review, “Villon”;Hunger Mountain, “Stylish Violence”;Iodine Poetry Journal, “Prayer,” “The Skin of Meaning,” “World Boogie”;James Dickey Review, “Context,” “Dear Reader”;Minnesota Review, “Louis and the Wolf”;North Carolina Conversations, “The Exile”;Plume, “Putting,” “The Long Black Road,” “Tranquility & Tremolo,” “Salvador”;Poems and Plays, “Ceremony”;Poetry East, “Great Blue Heron”; Poetry in Plain Sight, “Great Blue Heron,” “Robert Johnson’sMilk Cow Blues,” “Snow is ghostly . . . ,” “Why Pluto Is No Longer a Planet”;Poets Respond to Race (anthology), “Look for Me in Liberia”;Portland Review, “Jack Spicer,” “Running with the Bulls”;Red Truck Review, “Broken into Light,” “Love Among Cannibals”;Shenandoah, “Portrait of the Artist as a Spark”; andSouthern Poetry Anthology, “Nostalgia as Entropy,” “The Silver Surfer”.

For Denise

the bravest person I have ever known whose skin is my own

ETeMOLOGIES

The Skin of Meaning Why Pluto Is No Longer a Planet Et in Arcadia Ego The Force of Compassion The House of Dance and Feathers Prayer The Glory Façade The Exile The Bookmobile Retail Putting Context Nostalgia as Entropy Great Blue Heron Montauk Democracy

Clinton Redux Wall Street Climate Change The Neurologist Baby Boomers Gaslight: Inauguration Day The Agnostic

DICHOTOMIES

World Boogie Portrait of the Artist as a Spark Tranquility & Tremolo Thinking, Fast and Slow The Soul in Marble

CONTENTS

Tending the Plow Jenny Starling’s Classified Information Wonder Woman A Girl Like That Love Among Cannibals Robert Johnson’sMilk Cow Blues Louis and the Wolf This Rock Is Gonna Roll Glenn Gould in Carnegie Hall, 1962 “Like a Buddha, Paul Motian says . . .” The Kick of Infinity: Paradoxical Architecture The Invisible Bridge The Hidden Life of Ants Gaza Fragments of a Door Stylish Violence The Searchers Caravaggio’s Carnal Gospel Broken into Light

Blue Mountain Panorama

NECROLOGIES

“Snow is ghostly . . .” When You Go to Ground Thoughts on Easter While Digging a Grave The Long Black Road Shades of Night Descending The Justice System Salvador Look for Me in Liberia Jack Spicer Basquiat Villon Capital Punishment Writer’s Block Running with the Bulls Ceremony Dear Reader Houdini and the Dead Letter Office Le Papillon

Death Trek Building a Circus on the Sound of Wings The Mountain That Eats Men Antietam Coffin Not Included The Silver Surfer