Experiencing Scott Poole's poems is like visiting inside the human brain. His words pulse with electric life, and carry the reader on a torrent of wonderful energy to encounter marvel after marvel. A narrator grows corn inside his garage, another person bounces basketballs off a Rodin sculpture, a man sticks his foot into a coal mine on a Spring day permitting hundreds of tiny miners to escape. A sensitivity quivering with the terror and joy of existence inhabits this poetry. A man temporarily abandons replacing a broken automobile starter to savor the perfection of babies." Another realizes that living beings posses a power such "that death / can't completely inhabit the body." Poole's words would convince anyone that our species will endure and triumph. Humorous, thoughtful, and vibrating with magic, the poems of Hiding from Salesmen are simultaneously vehicle, idea, organic compound and music. The future of poetry---hey, the future of humanity---is in good hands if it's in Scott Poole's hands." --Tom Wayman
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Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
Experiencing Scott Poole’s poems is like visiting inside the human brain. His words pulse with electric life, and carry the reader on a torrent of wonderful energy to encounter marvel after marvel. A narrator grows corn inside his garage, another person bounces basketballs off a Rodin sculpture, a man sticks his foot into a coal mine on a Spring day permitting hundreds of tiny miners to escape.
A sensitivity quivering with the terror and joy of existence inhabits this poetry. A man temporarily abandons replacing a broken automobile starter to savor "the perfection of babies." Another realizes that living beings posses a power such "that death / can’t completely inhabit the body." Poole’s words would convince anyone that our species will endure and triumph. Humorous, thoughtful, and vibrating with magic, the poems of Hiding from Salesmen are simultaneously vehicle, idea, organic compound and music. The future of poetry—hey, the future of humanity—is in good hands if it’s in Scott Poole’s hands."
— Tom Wayman
Scott Poole’s poems are witty, terse, irreverent, sad, and, mostly, totally unexpected. Hiding from Salesmen—such a great title—signals, accurately, original, delightful."
— Diana O’Hehir
It would be simple enough if all Poole were interested in was comic resistance to certain death-pulls in our culture. Instead, his speaker—a husband, a father, someone grateful for "reality’s green backyard"—looks everywhere for signs of nobility and magic in human life. He finds it at a girl’s soccer game, at the river’s edge where lovers meet for picnics, at the scene of a terrorist attack. Under the beam of an MRI, the huge machine circling round him, "I let it register my love of baseball, / the friend I saved from drowning. . . / And I hoped / something greater than me / might show up on the screen." Just as the instrument searches within, the poems in Poole’s book look out, tracking what is beautiful, useful, and true.
— Richard Robbins
About the Author
Scott Poole is the Associate Director of Eastern Washington University Press. His first book, The Cheap Seats, was a finalist for Forward Magazine’s Book of the Year awards. He lives with his family in Spokane, Washington where his work can be heard every Monday morning on KPBX 91.1, Spokane Public Radio.
Robert Helm is an award winning artist whose works have appeared in galleries as far flung as Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and Berlin.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Humor with quizzical insight and a dash of the fantastic,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hiding from Salesmen (Hardcover)
Hiding From Salesmen is a collection of wry poems by Scott Pools that mix humor with quizzical insight and a dash of the fantastic. Black-and-white surrealist illustrations by Robert Helm enhance this unforgettable collection. The Sexy Shakers: Shaker architecture is as simple as sex./Two naked elms in a field wait to be/wooden bowls filled with light./Each scratch visible./Staircases. The sound of rising and descending steps/into clouds of bleached wood./Rows upon rows of plain drawers without labels.//All doors are open. The hinges greased./Cold air dances without music./A Shaker house is as sexual as a waiting skillet.//I don't care what you think./The Shakers are the sexiest people.//All their chairs are empty.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Witty and inspiring,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hiding from Salesmen (Hardcover)
Scott Poole's unique and clever voice shines in this book -- he takes on everything from ordinary life to the unabomber to lunch meat to 9/11, and does it all with extraordinary style and authenticity.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Favorite,
By
This review is from: Hiding from Salesmen (Hardcover)
Hiding From Salesmen is one of my most beloved books of poetry. Its funny, otherwordly, and insightful. I smile just at the sight of this book on my shelf.
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