Skin - by Robert Vandermolen (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"A testament to watchfulness." -- <b><i>NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW</i></b><p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>The first collection in over a decade from a master of his craft, <i>Skin</i> reflects earnestly on the miraculous moments found in the daily experiences of human life.</b> <p/> Time and time again, Robert VanderMolen's poems illuminate the cycles of human interaction alongside the slow-moving patterns of nature: "bark just separating / after nine thousand summers." A speaker asks, "Is everything too old or too new?" and the resounding answer throughout <i>Skin</i> is that it's a bit of both. Colorless birds, "a deep sweep of wind," and arrowheads found in a dying red oak all point to fragmented moments that make up what it means to stitch one's life together. "Attentiveness is my best friend," a speaker remarks off-handedly, but this affair with observation is earnest and real. <p/> <i>Skin</i> rewards the reader through a tacit understanding that everything in life is part of something larger that we can't see: the endless "thoughts that slide / into notice" where "in the chill of privacy / one seeks promise."<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"'How difficult to piece one observation / Into the next without hyperbole or minor lie, ' VanderMolen writes early in this book, his 12th, a testament to watchfulness." --<b><i>New York Times Book Review</i>, "New & Noteworthy Poetry"</b> <p/>"VanderMolen offers in this finely polished 12th book an assembly of poems that are intricate and sturdy, woven with well-chosen strands of candor . . . The result is a work of abundant pleasures, a testament to art as affirmation of human life." <b>--<i>Publishers Weekly</i></b><br><p><br></p><p> <p/>"For over half a century now, Robert VanderMolen has been 'shoring up the fragments' of our increasingly pixelated lives to form some of the most surprising, original poems in the American pantheon. You won't hear any of the usual notes in these pages, won't sense the prevalent gestures. Though written by one of our most accomplished, these new poems contain the freshness of dawn-met birdsong, of 'something that rises up / Out of the murk of sleep and turns true.' Gorgeous, mirror-polishing poems."<b>--Chris Dombrowski</b> <p/> <p/>"Robert VanderMolen finds and propounds the courage to hold himself accountable for the unaccountable consequences of Attention, and Vision. Thus his is a law without bounds and an unconditional mercy. The Sublime is always inappropriate, and VanderMolen delights in sublimity without shame. Honor him." --<b>Donald Revell</b> <p/> <p/>"In the poetry of Robert VanderMolen you see a familiar American landscape from the side, and within a few poems, to get accustomed, you are walking beside him through the tall grass, listening to his confidential insights in their rigorous but easygoing stride. As a guide, he takes you to the spots where, if you're quiet, you'll observe all the compassion and endurance that migrates through his corner of the world, and through the rivers of his sensibility, where, as in his poem 'Three Things, ' 'Beauty is relative, / Truth elusive, someone reported-- / As a teenager I made it my motto.'"<b>--Ed Skoog</b> <p/> <p/><i>"Skin</i> reflects earnestly on the miraculous moments found in the daily experiences of human life. Time and time again, these poems illuminate the cycles of human interaction alongside the slow-moving patterns of nature: 'bark just separating / after nine thousand summers.' A speaker asks, 'Is everything too old or too new?' and the resounding answer is that it's a bit of both. Colorless birds, 'a deep sweep of wind, ' and arrowheads found in a dying red oak all point to fragmented moments that make up what it means to stitch one's life together. 'Attentiveness is my best friend, ' a speaker remarks offhandedly, but this affair with observation is earnest and real. <i>Skin</i> rewards the reader through a tacit understanding that everything in life is part of something larger that we can't see: the endless 'thoughts that slide / Into notice' where 'In the chill of privacy / One seeks promise.'"<b>--Adam Clay</b> <p/> <p/><b>Praise for Water</b> <p/> <p/>"Full of careful camera work, dark and cinematic narratives from one of our finest word-wrights--each (to borrow Frost's word) an 'adventure.' But beware the undertow."--<b>Thomas Lynch</b> <p/> <p/>"I had an extraordinary experience with <i>Water</i>, reading it one poem a day in the morning with the attention that fine poetry deserves. Poetry is ultimately an obsession of our soul life and VanderMolen easily makes it into the current top ten of my own restoratives. He is a seer in the oldest sense."--<b>Jim Harrison</b> <p/> <p/>"Like photographic negatives, VanderMolen's poems owe their uncanniness to vivid apprehensions of reality. . . . He is among the few living poets able to conjure the hard bright particulars of a local American existence. . . . Over the course of forty years, VanderMolen's example suggests that such moments, where a shimmering of human perception points to a reality beyond what we can imagine, might indeed be enough to build a life around."--<b>Nate Klug</b> <p/> <p/><b>Praise for Breath</b> <p/> <p/>"These poems are, in their ordering of local particular, their oblique, ranging memory, their curious, almost dream-like asides, among the most remarkable literature of our time. A large stillness radiates from them; and an uncommon depth, as well, that sends them into one's mind and keeps them there."--<b>August Kleizahler</b> <p/> <p/>"When you read <i>Breath</i>, prepare to be surprised, delighted, and unsettled--just as the driver of a car whose heater doesn't work, in one of his poems, when he discovers that 'one warm Spring day / When the vent was opened / the car was filled with bees.' VanderMolen's poems are always kinetic, always on the move, and among the sexiest being written in America today. Read 'Saturday' if you want to experience VanderMolen at the top of his form. He has a knack for quoting real or imaginary dialogue that is both funny and very much to the point: 'The older you get / The worse you look without money, ' for example. He splices with assurance; he jump-cuts with ease."--<b>Richard Tillinghast</b> <p/> <p/>"In <i>Breath</i>, Robert VanderMolen finds and propounds the courage to hold himself accountable for the unaccountable consequences of Attention, of Vision. Thus his is a law without bounds and an unconditional mercy. The Sublime is always inappropriate, and VanderMolen delights in sublimity without shame. Honor him."--<b>Donald Revell</b></p><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Robert VanderMolen</b> is the author of twelve collections of poetry. He has been publishing poetry since the mid-1960s. His poems appear regularly in periodicals such as the <i>London Review of Books</i>, <i>Grand Street</i>, <i>Parnassus</i>, <i>Poetry</i>, <i>Epoch</i>, <i>Michigan Quarterly Review</i>, <i>Bald Ego</i>, and <i>Saint Ann's Review</i>. He lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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