Dervish [Paperback]

Gerard Wozek (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2001

Finalist for the 2002 Violet Crown Book Award Literary Prose & Poetry & 2000 Winner of the Gival Press Poetry Award--"Dervish" has received praise from a variety authors for its eloquence and moving tales of adventure. Wozek takes the reader along his many journeys from America to Europe to Morocco. This collection blends the erotic with the spiritual world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...In these pages, find potent spells, incantations, recitations, and prayers...By Jove, these poems shimmer." -- Gerry Gomez Pearlberg

About the Author

Gerard Wozek lives in his hometown of Chicago. His poetry and fiction have appeared in "Rebel Yell 2", "Erotic Travel Tales", "The Road Within", and "1998 Best Gay Erotica." Wozek is also an internationally known videographer and his poem "Elemental Reels" was featured on the website Planet Out. Wozek teaches English composition and humanities at Robert Morris College in Chicago.

Product Details

• Paperback: 60 pages
• Publisher: Gival Press, LLC; 1st edition (September 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1928589111
• ISBN-13: 978-1928589112
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 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: #4,986,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gerard Wozek is the author of "Dervish" (Gival Press) which won the Gival Press Poetry Award. His book, "Postcards From Heartthrob Town" (Southern Tier Editions) is a collection of short travel stories selected for the Haworth Press "Out in the World" Travel Literature Series. Wozek's award-winning poetry videos have been featured at festivals and conferences around the world. He teaches writing and literature at Robert Morris University Illinois.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive and memorable compendium, March 16, 2002

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dervish (Paperback)

Dervish is an impressive and memorable compendium showcasing the poetry of Gerard Wozek. A master wordsmith, Wozek's poetry is eloquent, moving, and leaves behind an intellectual and emotional impact that hallmarks him as a truly gifted poet. A calendar from Krakow/with unpronounceable days./Printed with glos-sy photos/of floodlit church steeples/and crenellated towers./Exotica to pitch/a tou-rist's imagination elsewhere./The camera lens keeps/less affluent residents/out of the frame./Perhaps they're behind/the old cloth hall/or in the pee-rancid train depot/where the old communist songs/still raise the rafters./Wood shavings on the waiting room/floor make soft nests/at the shoeless feet of comrades,/where their carved birds/wait to fly overseas/for only two zloty.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incantory Poet, January 31, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Dervish (Paperback)

Bravo! Gerard Wozek joins hands with mystic poets Rumi, Whitman, and Rimbaud in his celebration of the body electric. Despite his earthy references (sometimes more confessional than confidential) to carnality, there is a desire in Wozek's poems to move towards beauty and transcendence. Featured at the Lambda Literary Festival 2001, this slim volume presents lyrical snapshots of the poet divining what is most sacred at both emotional and sexual crossroads. A noteworthy debut!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Locating the sacred in mundane moments, June 6, 2003

By 

"hazel22" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dervish (Paperback)

The prevalent themes in this ambitious first book by Chicago, Illinois native Wozek are travel and identity. For some, traveling means leaping to the unknown where we're somehow freer to embrace whatever or whomever all in the name of revelation. The result of this treatment of travel is poetry written not in the spirit of expression, but in the spirit of discovery. With lines like "until I shimmer like polished ivory,/ stir and thrash like a new god" and "your eyes give back/ my whole desire" we see the speaker's internal struggle in virtually every poem. As truth unravels for the speaker, it's revealing itself to the readers as well. It is this feeling of collectivism that makes reading and re-reading Dervish a cardinal experience. The logistical progression of these poems, though, is difficult to comment on. The readers wander through Italy and France, to India and Germany, to the USA and then back to France, then to Algeria, Poland, Italy and Mexico. On one hand, the sundry locations are jarring and scattered, but on the other hand they speak to that sense of dervish - how the soul simultaneously exists in many geographies, yet no one particular place. Thus, this structure is one of restlessness. Through this capricious physical setting, the poet twirls the readers. We whirl and whirl, unable to discern ground from sky. Wozek's consistently descriptive language, where precision is the primary concern, involves the readers. Textured diction such as "until they suffocated in their long manly moans" and "we swallow silk" shows Wozek's ability to accurately depict a moment. Not only this, but his poems evoke great writers such as Diane Ackerman ("I sing praises to my destroyer") and Jane Hirshfield (seen in his stellar use of directives in poems Spell for Changing Bodies and Ritual for Letting Go). However, at times the uses of language both push and pull the reader. Private and referential lines such as "not a jolt/ from a melange at the Hawelka" have a distancing effect. Yet, at the same time, Wozek's words (for example: "and let the damp gardenia air swell our lungs") convey a certain intimacy, like inviting a known voyeur into one's home. What's most remarkable about this collection is its adoration: love of language, man, travel, and love of self. So, for all who are unafraid to journey from the self and to the self by way of sex and beauty, then close the blinds, smash the television, pour a glass of Merlot, pull up a sofa, and indulge in Dervish. Fear not, for this won't be the last of Gerard Wozek. The book's final sentiment rightfully forecasts Wozek's position on our national poetry scene: "I persist."