Sea Smoke

by Jenkins, Louis

• ISBN13: 9780930100131
• ISBN10: 0930100131
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-15
• Publisher: Holy Cow Pr

Summary

"Louis Jenkins captures-nails down really!-whole moments in time and space, completely decorated with all the essential textual things needed to make them vibrate and shudder with life."-Clarence Major The 60 new prose poems in Sea Smoke continue Louis Jenkins' imaginative glimpses of scenes from contemporary life. Many of these pieces begin with the ordinary, but a subtle pivot in language propels the reader into an unexpected and oftentimes humorous perspective from which to view the world anew. Herein the blue moon is unhappy as it gazes into car windows, clouds sweep across the horizon as if serving Genghis Khan, and the poet considers the benefits of retirement: Retirement I've been thinking of retiring, of selling the poetry business and enjoying my twilight years. It's a prose poem business, so it's a niche market. Still, after thirty some years, I must have assets worth well in excess of $300. Perhaps the new owner of the business will want to diversify, go into novels or plays, or perhaps merge into a school or movement. It won't matter to me once I've retired. Maybe I'll do a little traveling, winter in the Southwest. Take up golf. Spend more time with the family. Maybe I'll just walk around and look at things with absolutely no compulsion to say anything at all about them. Louis Jenkins lives in Duluth, Minnesota. His poems have been published in a number of literary magazines and anthologies. His books of poetry include An Almost Human Gesture (Eighties Press and Ally Press, 1987), All Tangled Up With the Living (Nineties Press, 1991), Nice Fish: New & Selected Prose Poems (Holy Cow! Press, 1995), Just Above Water (Holy Cow! Press, 1997), and The Winter Road (Holy Cow! Press, 2000). Some of his prose poems were published in The Best American Poetry 1999 (Scribner) and in Great American Prose Poems (Scribner, 2003).

Table of Contents

I
Imaginary Reader	9	(1)
The Body and the Soul	10	(1)
Blue Moon	11	(1)
The Talk	12	(1)
Culinary Considerations	13	(1)
The Kiss	14	(1)
The First Day of Spring	15	(1)
Fisherman	16	(1)
A Happy Song	17	(1)
The Back Country	18	(1)
Heredity	19	(1)
Where Go the Boats	20	(1)
Canaries	21	(4)
II
Canadian Wilderness	25	(1)
Overboard	26	(1)
The Clouds	27	(1)
Bassoon	28	(1)
Free Lawn Mower	29	(1)
Poppies	30	(1)
Surveying	31	(1)
Wedding	32	(1)
Sleeping Beauty	33	(1)
Jay	34	(1)
I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus	35	(1)
A Sense of Direction	36	(3)
III
Retirement	39	(1)
Autumn Leaves	40	(1)
Haldeman & Erlichman	41	(1)
Middle Ages	42	(1)
Awakening	43	(1)
Apple Dolls	44	(1)
The Ash Grove	45	(1)
Diner	46	(1)
Fictional Character	47	(1)
Old Couple	48	(1)
Hitchhiker	49	(1)
Knife Island	50	(1)
Steady or Slowly Falling	51	(1)
Park	52	(1)
Time Marches On	53	(4)
IV
Sublimation	57	(1)
The Long Winter	58	(1)
An Ill Wind	59	(1)
I Must Say	60	(1)
The Black Journal	61	(1)
Dark Days	62	(1)
Lost	63	(1)
Goings On Around the House	64	(1)
Old Friends	65	(1)
The State of the Economy	66	(1)
Remember	67	(1)
Of an Age	68	(1)
Some Things to Think About	69	(1)
The Chair	70	(1)
Wayfaring Stranger	71	(1)
The Snowman Monologues	72	(1)
Wednesday	73	(1)
Expanding Universe	74	(1)
Up in the Morning	75	(1)
Wrong Turn	76