I take seriously what Ezra Pound said, "make poetry new." I do not want to write like anyone else, if that's possible. I want to create new forms of poetry. Sure, I have been influenced by many writers who write differently than I do, whether it is in style, theme, or topics, but I respect all forms and styles of poetry. I am experimenting all the time. Each time I write, it is as if it is my first time, like I have not done it before. The poem, and the way it is put together, becomes the object I am writing about as well as the subject. The way the poem is written is part of its meaning. All of it, I feel, comes from a deep and original, and yet common, place. I write to try to understand myself and the world and to question the things we just assume to be true, but mostly I write to remember the brightness of being alive.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The Truth and Nothing But the Truth,
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This review is from: B I C Y C L E S , C A N O E S , D R U M S (Paperback)
Dan Sklar tells it like it is. He lives his life with his eyes and his heart wide open and he lets you into his world through his poetry. I can honestly say that this is the best collection of poetry that I have ever had the pleasure to read. He tells the truth, and does not craft any of his words to impress anyone, or to fit a form. Through his use of simple sentences, repetition, and vivid imagery Sklar is able to reveal things about life that many people overlook. His love of the little things in the world brings his poetry to life, which makes all of his poems truly inspirational. Also, his sense of humor appears in many of his poems and it is enough to keep you laughing for hours after reading them. Thoreau, a writer that Sklar writes about and admires, once said, "How vain is it to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." Sklar certainly has stood up to live, and we are all very lucky that he has sat down to write. He is different from so many other writers because he does not dwell on death, or dwell on rhyme schemes, or change what he is actually trying to say. If Sklar ever writes about someone who died he talks about the way that they lived. If he ever rhymes it is not noticeable, and he always avoids clichés. He says what is on his mind, even if it would get him in trouble. I highly recommend that you not only read this book, but also read "Hack Writer" which is a collection of Sklar's poetry, short stories, and plays. You will not regret reading Dan Sklar's works, and that is the truth and nothing but the truth.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real Men Write Poetry,
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This review is from: B I C Y C L E S , C A N O E S , D R U M S (Paperback)
Fans of European 19th century verse, thick with symbolism and multi-syllabic, will find little to love in Dan Sklar's Bicycles, Canoes, Drums. Sklar's poetry could be characterized as American Primitive, clean and bracing as creek water. Like Whitman, Sklar celebrates the mystery and profundity of the everyday. This is "guy" poetry, muscularly chronicling the days and to-do list of the contemporary American male, helplessly and joyfully committed to the challenges of raising a houseful of boys, teaching sleepy-eyed college students, and handling the ignominies of manuscript rejection letters. Sklar's poems tumble and sing with enormously universal appeal.
Reviewed by Lisa Beatman, author of Manufacturing America: Poems from the Factory Floor (Ibbetson Street Press 2008).
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Refreshing Thing Review by Hugh Fox,
By Labeache (MA. USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: B I C Y C L E S , C A N O E S , D R U M S (Paperback)
The refreshing thing about Sklar's poetry is that it's not that carefully worked-over, avant-garde, conundrum, riddle-twisted work that is less interested in getting across ideas and emotions than puzzling and impressing the reader. Sklar is Mr. Tell-It-As-It-Is. Which he himself is very aware of: "My poems/do not win/poetry awards/because/they are/not poems/at all." ("Wanted," p.54).
Which is not to say that they don't move, touch you, communicate. By getting rid of all the technique games and getting to the human heart of things, Sklar is one of the most successful communicators around: "I just want to clear off my desk,/listen to jazz and write and write/and type and type about things/that are important to me at this/moment like the fact that my son is 17 and in Catamarca,/Argentina for a year learning/tango and violin and..." ("Poetry is Just Not that Important to Me Now," p. 126). His topics include the inner Thoreau, horses, funerals, war, bicycles, rain, aging,sex, opera, canoes (and the Iroquois), truck accidents....and there's not a poem in this book that you can stop reading once you've read the first line. Unreadable poets should take a course in Sklar, get readable, read Bicycles, Canoes, Drums. Hugh Fox/Sept 2008
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