Treehouse: New and Selected Poems [Paperback]

William Kloefkorn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1996

Kloefkorn has been called the Garrison Keillor of poetry. His highly-accessible work combines the rhythms of the poet with the spellbinding lyricism of the storyteller. Although he writes from and about the mid-western United States, these are poems that touch on universal issues of time and place, of growing up and growing older. This book contains work from eleven books, most of which are now out of print, and a large selection from new work reflecting the current state of affairs in his, and our, world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The State Poet of Nebraska culls selections from 11 prior collections (including Going Out, Coming Back, 1993) and adds new poems liberally. Kloefkorn is consistently accessible and restrained, practicing his art without artifice, drawing mainly on autobiographical material about the family of his Kansas youth, especially his brother, in well-crafted poems that sound a deep tone of remembrance, lightened with humor and wisdom. Themes and images recur: the brothers killing barnswallows by slingshot; "a butterfly snag in a windowblind"; there's a barefoot woman in a peach slip; and a specific Lincoln street revisited. Kloefkorn writes, "behind each great public event/ lies the small private one/ ...that/ truly matters, that endures" and filters WWII through his youth as a paperboy delivering the Wichita Beacon. Frequently mixing disparate elements, he continues to make the commonplace new, as in "Outage": "When the power/ in a blink returns/ we sit silent and stunned,/ seeing each other again/ in such a quaint and altogether/ different light."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

1943
Abandoned Farmhouse
After Breakfast With My Wife At The Hy-vee Diner
After The Drunk Crushed My Father
Alone In The Sandhills Of Sheridan County, Nebraska,
At Shannon's Creek, Early August
Beginning Then Myself For The First Authentic Time To Die
Benediction
Benediction
Camping On The North Bank Of The Platte
Cave
Christmas 1939
Christmas 1940
A City Waking Up
Cleaning Out My Dead Grandfather's Barn
Collecting For The Wichita Beacon
Cornsilk
Cures
Cycle
The Day I Pedaled My Girlfriend Betty Lou All The Way Around
The Day The Earthquake Was Scheduled To Happen But Didn't
December 8, 1941
Dress
Drifting
Drifting
Drinking The Tin Cup Dry
Drums
Easter Sunday
Epitaph For A Grandfather
Fastpitch Finals
First Night Of A Weekend Fishing With My Brother
Fishing With My Two Boys At A Spring-fed Pond In Kansas
For My Wife's Father
From Within The First House
George Eat Old Gray Rat At Pappy's House Yesterday
Hitting The Tree
In A Motel Room Somewhere In Western Nebraska
In Switzerland
In The Treehouse With Franklin
Independent
An Interlude For Morning
Kicking Leaves
Killing The Swallows
Last Of The Mohicans
Last Summer And The One Before
The Louvre
Lovers
Ltl
The Mad Farmer Shuts Himself Inside Silo To Sing Away Storm
Monday Morning
Mother Said She Was Glad Now
Mowing The Lawn For The Last Time
Mowing The Sidewalk
My Love For All Things Warm And Breathing
Nebraska, Early March
Nebraska: This Place, These People
The Night Joe Louis Went 21-0 By Dropping Tami Mauriello
Non-stop Begonias
Not Dreaming
Not Such A Bad Place To Be
Oceanside, Early August
On A Hot Day After Rain
On A Porch Swing Swinging
On The Road, Sunday, March 6, 1977
One Of Those
The Others
Out-and-down Pattern
Outage
The Price Of Admission
Rancher
Returning
Riding My Bicycle Without Hands Down Huntington Street
Rope
Rushing The Season
Saunders County Barn
Schwinn
Selling The World Book Door To Door
Separations
Singing Hymns With Unitarians
Sowing The Whirlwind
Stealing Melons
Sunday Morning
Sycamore
Taking The Milk To Grandmother
Testament
Thanksgiving
That Summer
That Voice From A Brain Evolved To Dream
Thinking More, Talking Less
This Tree, This Hackberry
Toots Slocum
Town Team
Town Team
Treehouse
Trying To Love You In These Words
Two Trumpets In Sunlight
Uncertain The Final Run To Winter
Undressing By Lamplight
Upon Learning Of The Death Of My Hairdresser's Baby
Waiting For The Bus At 63rd And Huntington
Waiting To Jell
Waitress
Walking Home, Late October
Walking The Tracks
Walking To Work
Watercolor: The Door
Welcome To Carlos
Whatever Is Elevated And Pure, Precisely On Key
Wildwood, Early Autumn
You Have Lived Long Enough
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: White Pine Press; 1st edition (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1877727652
• ISBN-13: 978-1877727658
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,841,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Book of Poetry Even for Non-Poetry Folks, January 28, 2009

By 

Matthew K. Maxwell (Kansas City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Treehouse: New and Selected Poems (Paperback)

I heard Mr. Kloefkorn read poetry when I was in college and I bought this book. I still read from it from time to time. Honestly, I saw my father cry when his mother died from a sudden heart attack, when his father-in-law died suddenly, when his first son left for college, and when he read the framed reprint of "Fishing with my boys in a spring-fed pond in Kansas" I gave him for Christmas (sorry 'bout the copyright infringement, Bill). It's that good.