Lost Horse Releases SONGS FOR A SUMMONS by David Guterson
By: BWW News Desk Dec. 30, 2013
Like those of Robert Frost-or Tu Fu-David Guterson's poems often find transcendence in the natural world, in particular the mountain ranges and island landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. But his sources are many-history, literature, contemporary culture-and what unites this fine debut collection of poetry is not limited to place. It is, instead, an acutely honed awareness, one that takes us from a spent match head's black thorn to a contemplation of the emptiness of form: "When the last leaf is off the tree / celebrate illusion."
-Linda Beards
As is true when David Guterson enriches our lives and literature with memorable stories and essays, he is on these pages a poet acutely, even achingly, aware of the beauty and sometimes absurdity of the natural and unnatural forms that surround us. He is awake to the experience of illusion and impermanence, loneliness and suffering. And always in these well-crafted works, where language performs at its highest level, he is awake to the possibilities of love, gratitude, redemption, and the importance of self-acceptance. With each elegant poem in Songs For A Summons, Guterson liberates our seeing, our senses, and beckons us to live more fully, more authentically, more deeply.
-Dr. Charles Johnson, author of Middle Passage
DAVID GUTERSON is the author of the novels East of the Mountains, Our Lady of the Forest, The Other, Ed King, and Snow Falling on Cedars, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award; two story collections, The Country Ahead of Us, The Country Behind and Problems with People (2014); a memoir, Descent; and a book of essays, Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense. Songs for a Summons is his first book of poems. He lives in Washington State.
Videos
