Cheap Seats [Paperback]

Scott Poole (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999

From the cheap seats, those in the back of the house or the most distant reaches of the balcony, the view is different. What is missed in subtlety is made up for by the wider range of vision. From up high and far behind you can see more than the stage, and some of the more interesting moments take place in the margins. Not only do you see the sets, but you see them being built; not only do you see the stars, but you see the reflectors that give them light. In this first collection, Poole looks into the wings, noticing the story behind the story. His poems concern not his friend who goes crazy, but the reaction of those close to him. For him, the chimneys of a distant community look like cemetary stones, and they take his thoughts beyond the here and now. He doesn t have to know a New York woman to imagine one: long hair/ they are always combing,/ thick hair that gets loose/ and crawls down the skyscraper. William Stafford said that poets see things in a slant way, from a corner of their eyes. From Poole s cheap seats, there s a lot more to see. Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

From the cheap seats, those in the back of the house or the most distant reaches of the balcony, the view is different. What is missed in subtlety is made up for by the wider range of vision. From up high and far behind you can see more than the stage, and some of the more interesting moments take place in the margins. Not only do you see the sets, but you see them being built; not only do you see the stars, but you see the reflectors that give them light. In this first collection, Poole looks into the wings, noticing the story behind the story. His poems concern not his friend who goes crazy but the reaction of those close to him. For him, the chimneys of a distant community look like cemetery stones, and they take his thoughts beyond the here and now. He doesn't have to know a New York woman to imagine one: "long hair/ they are always combing,/ thick hair that gets loose/ and crawls down the skyscraper." William Stafford said that poets see things in a slant way, from the corner of their eyes. From Poole's cheap seats, there's a lot more to see.ALouis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover

In The Cheap Seats, Scott Poole creates an alternative universe out of the elements of our familiar one, but the stranger and more outrageous his world becomes, the more we recognize it as home. Is his art Cubist? Surrealist? Post-modern? It's all of these and more, including doses of both Lewis Carroll and classic American deadpan comedy. There's innocence here, and it's always foxy. His style, while projecting playfulness, acts as a series of surgical strikes, that precise. By means of a powerful creative will and endless inventiveness, Poole characteristically directs language, perception, and imagination where they are not accustomed to go. He works to rinse with a concentrated astringent our interface with ourselves and our world. The subject of one poem is what he calls a "happiness lamp"; the truth is this book is such a lamp - you turn it on by reading it.- Philip Dacey

Here is a funny poet, a very funny poet . . . but also a very serious one "who knows the power of everyday words." From The Friend Who Went Crazy to Now That I'm Done you will enjoy every poem, every word.- Carlos Reyes

The Cheap Seats awakens us to the delightful power many of us have forgotten since childhood that we possess: the power of transforming prosaic objects and events into poetry . . . Poole's imagination is of the heart; he shows us how to spread a quiet, wry, and genuinely humble wonderment over the field of our vision. I love the poems in The Cheap Seats . . . I feel sure that those of you who think that poetry is not for you will change your minds when you read this book . . . - Pierre Delattre

I love The Cheap Seats . . . many poems tuned me up, threaded the wind's needle, plied the multiple resonance simply, surprisingly, landed the mind and loosened the weight . . .- James Grabill

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 84 pages
• Publisher: Lost Horse Press; 1 edition (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966861205
• ISBN-13: 978-0966861204
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,633,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poole creates his own world: Tread lightly here, use courage, July 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cheap Seats (Paperback)

Scott Poole's mind is wired incorrectly. Something is wrong in this boy's head, and the result it all right with me. The poems in this book show us what the postmodern world can be. Half-literary, Half-media-insanity, Poole's universe is controlled like a dream. His hopes and fears are our own; his interpretations of these is entirely his. His language is highly visual, highly interactive. We see these poems and the worlds they disguise from our own history, from where he helps us to remember our childhood, loves and nightmares in which ponies in pink lace somehow can save us. Nature and nudity and hallucination abound in these poems. Lust has never been sillier nor more immediate. This is how the writer wants the world to function, and with good reason. Once you enter Poole's world, our own seems less than adequate, where imagination is only our own, in The Cheap Seats, it is a wild ride that we all share, crammed into the back seat of Poole's old convertible, as he drives toward the edge of a chasm. Trust him behind the wheel, this man knows how to drive.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny poems whose shadows add depth and emotional significan, April 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cheap Seats (Paperback)

Scott Poole is a funny poet for sure, but what strikes the reader are the shadows below the humor. The bite and the literal sadness. If one observes the world beyond TV, one is a philosopher of poets. If one is nimble-tongued and true to the heart's point-of-view, one is gifted to speak to us in a language we digest level by level as it settles through the skin and seduces our insides. That's a good thing, I think. Scott Poole is a poet with both these characteristics and his poems are literal and clumsy and real. I dare you to read one without laughing or realizing something new: "This silence is nothing but me./It drowns things too small to hear./It's a little car running out of gas/nowhere."

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars cheap poems, cheap laughs, cheap women, great book, March 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Cheap Seats (Paperback)

If you are the kind of person who sits in the balcony at movies, wonders what Charles Manson is up to, dreams of showering in a waterfall, hates their job or has friends who are crazier than you, well, this is the book for you.

These poems are funny and sad and hip in ways that you'll immediately recognize. They're also strangely beautiful. You won't look at the world quite the same way you used to when you finish this book.