Sailor in the Rain and Other Poems by Denis M. Garrison Published by Modern English Tanka Press
Sailor in the Rain and Other Poems is Denis M. Garrison’s collection of free and formal verse, written over five decades. Renowned poet, Michael McClintock, in his preface to this collection, writes: “Contained in Sailor in the Rain are some of the best poems of an American original, Denis M. Garrison. They are gleaned from previous collections large and small, and are presented in a carefully ordered narrative structure having a beginning, middle, and an end. The epitaph that appears at the book’s close, ‘Sailor in the Rain’—from which the title of the whole has been taken and by which rudder the whole has been steered carefully into port...—is the only resting place you are likely to find.”
Baltimore, Maryland December 31, 2007–Sailor in the Rain and Other Poems, Denis M. Garrison’s collection of free and formal verse, written over five decades, has been published in hard cover and trade paperback editions by Modern English Tanka Press.
“Garrison’s sense of place and region, and his consciousness and reckoning of good and evil, order and chaos, truth and deceit, are all essential to his character as a poet, and that character relates his work to a diverse group of poets who span several centuries and have similar interests and thematic pre-occupations. His ‘Confessio’ might have been written by John Donne, as part of that poet’s series of ‘Holy Sonnets.’ Garrison’s haunted and haunting landscapes relate to similar metaphysical elements found in the earliest American poets and prose masters: Edward Taylor and Philip Freneau, Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Garrison’s concerns with symbolic argument and imagery (including the ambiguous and macabre) find their precursors in Edgar Alan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Stéphane Mallarmé—the latter, also, for a shared fascination for the interplay and revelations of style and content that a poet may achieve when pursuing the essence of invented, perfect poetic forms. . . . In their unfolding and wingbeat, the poems in this collection bear the shape and trajectory of a well-examined life, the environments that have weathered Garrison’s journey, the people, places and ideas he has encountered—figuratively, the shells he has held to his ear to plumb the mysteries of sound, silence, and the oceanic infinities that roll in waves upon the human heart, as upon a beach through the seasons, bringing the tides that shape and re-shape ourselves, our perceptions, and the ground we stand on. . . . Garrison is no castaway, ... but is a poet who speaks in full sympathy with all who, like Crusoe, have spent much of their time isolated from the noise and clamor of a noisy, clamorous world, who have found themselves and, having returned to the world from afar, bring to and express in their chosen art the merits of their own private struggle—the wisdom of self-discovery, the strength of self-knowledge, and the confidence to speak with authority about those everlasting things that carry us into the next day, and the day after that. . . . Garrison’s engagement with the world and the idioms of idea and emotion is versatile and inventive, neither easy nor safe. The structures he has used to shape and hold his thought are neither arbitrary nor predictable, but always exploratory. Occasionally, we must run to catch up or, caught in a close-up that takes our breath away, we must pause, stand back from the scene, and recover a perspective that permits us the luxury and comfort of objective distance. —Michael McClintock, in his Preface to Sailor in the Rain and Other Poems.
About the Author:
Denis M. Garrison is the editor and publisher of Modern English Tanka and Modern Haiga. He lives near Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay with his wife, Deborah. A 1974 Towson graduate in English literature, he edited Towson’s literary magazine and taught creative writing for Johns Hopkins University’s Free University. His poetry is published in Poetry Scotland, Nightingale, Verse Libre Quarterly, Simply Haiku, Ribbons, Lynx, Nisqually Delta Review, Moonset, Wisteria, Roadrunner, Stirring, World Haiku Review, Haiga Online, Paper Wasp, Short Stuff, Full Moon, Clouds Peak, and others, in his chapbook, Port of Call and Other Poems, and in his books, Eight Shades of Blue (haiku), Hidden River (haiku) and The Brink at Logan Pond. He has edited the webzines, Haiku Harvest (2000-2006; digital & print), Ku Nouveau, Haiku Noir, Templar Phoenix, Haiku Cycles, and Gunpowder River Poetry. Garrison’s poetry is published in several anthologies, including: May Dazed, Poets Gone Wild, Fire Pearls, Sixty Sunflowers, The Five-Hole Flute, The Dreaming Room, and Landfall. In 2002, he was a founding editor of Amaze: The Cinquain Journal. In 2005, Garrison was a founding editor of Loch Raven Review.
For media inquiries or to arrange an interview with the author, contact: Denis M. Garrison by e-mail at dmg (at) themetpress (dot) com. Publisher information at: www.modernenglishtankapress.com. This book is available from www.Lulu.com/modernenglishtanka and from major booksellers; or by order from the publisher. Complete information and mail order form are available online at www.modernenglishtankapress.com. Price: $19.95 USD. ISBN 978-0-6151-8555-2. Trade paperback. (Also: Price: $37.95 USD. ISBN 978-0-6151-8497-5. Hard cover with dust jacket.) Both editions are 136 pages, 6.00" x 9.00", perfect binding, 60# cream interior paper, black and white interior ink, 100# exterior paper, full-color exterior ink.
About Modern English Tanka Press:
Modern English Tanka Press is an independent equity publishing house in Baltimore, Maryland, dedicated to producing books and periodicals of lasting literary value. A family business, we treat our customers and partners in publishing like family. Our publications are produced using modern print-on-demand production and distribution methods. We publish tanka, haiku, and other fine poetry. Our special mission is to promote the tanka form of poetry, to educate newcomers to tanka about this most ancient poetic form, and to work for wider publication of tanka in both specialty and mainstream poetry venues. To those ends, we publish the journals “Modern English Tanka,” “Atlas Poetica,” “Modern Haiga,” and special edition books of tanka, haiku, and other fine verse. We operate www.TankaCentral.com, the internet megasite for tanka, with its popular “Tanka News” blog, and the poetry web hub, www.ShortVerse.com.
Contact:
Denis M. Garrison, owner
Modern English Tanka Press
443-802-1249
Email to dmg (at) themetpress (dot) com.
www.modernenglishtankapress.com www.modernenglishtanka.com www.atlaspoetica.com
www.shortverse.com www.tankacentral.com www.tankanews.com www.modernhaiga.com
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