Neck of the World (Swenson Poetry Award) [Paperback]

F. Daniel Rzicznek (Author)

Book Description

Series: Swenson Poetry Award | Publication Date: October 22, 2007

Neck of the World is the eleventh volume in the prestigious May Swenson Poetry Award series. In it, Daniel Rzicznek offers poems that, in quick angular language, capture the natural world and at the same time extend it into a surreal vision, sometimes dream-like, sometimes dark. Alice Quinn, judge for the 2007 Swenson Award, says this of Rzicznek’s work: “Throughout, the language pulsates, always vigorous, by turns knotty and crystalline. . . . In Neck of the World, we have a poet with a striking new vision--challenging, rewarding, and bold."

Editorial Reviews

Review

In these tattered and shameful times, it enlarges the spirit to find poems of such expansive inseeing. F. Daniel Rzicznek describes his world with transformative perception: whether it’s “the bright branch of...[his] spine,” or “the night sky pinned to the inside of his skull,” the metaphors are so incisive they leave one with a renewed sense of the enduring relationship between things. Passionate, relevant, direct, well-heard, and wholly unpretentious, these are stunning poems: they matter.   
   
Jane Mead

F. Daniel Rzicznek is an eccentric, a word I use honorifically, in its originative sense: “away from the center.” What I mean is that here I've found a poet like none other I know: a man completely at home both in the natural universe and in some intriguingly dreamy realm, to which his imagination often leads me.

The purely physical and the oneiric: what other poetry can figure these not as adversarial but as complementary? Neck of the World uncannily does so, in poem after brilliant poem.
   
Sydney Lea

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

F. Daniel Rzicznek earned his BA from Kent State University and MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. His chapbook of prose poems, Cloud Tablets, part of the Wick Poetry Chapbook Series, appeared from Kent State University Press in 2006. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, AGNI, The Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, and numerous other literary journals. Currently, he teaches English composition at Bowling Green State University and lives with his wife in Bowling Green, Ohio. Neck of the World is his first book-length collection of poems.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Utah State University Press; 1 edition (October 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874216702
• ISBN-13: 978-0874216707
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,856,949 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.