Poetry. "WHAT KILLS WHAT KILLS US explores the human condition in all its glory and ferocity. Through Biblical allusion, Greek myth, and coming-of-age drama, this work revels in sheer grit and imagination. Olsson doesn't shy away from atrocity. His is an original use of language, manifested at times by a suspicion of language itself: 'what issued from his mouth seemed as wondrous as a bird/ of paradise strutting about, its tail a flag for the next world, / so he kept talking.' Olsson's supreme gift lies in his ability to astonish the reader even as he opens our minds to the state of our own fragile humanity"-- Judith Skillman.
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About the Author
Kurt S. Olsson grew up in Troy, New York. A former Peace Corps volunteer, he has published poems in many journals, including Antioch Review, Field, Poetry, and The Threepenny Review. He lives just outside of Washington, D.C., with his wife and two daughters.
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First Sentence:
As if, with characteristic irony, he'd finally lived down to Plato's definition of man (two-legged and featherless), as if ninety years of denial had left him all string and knob, worked him over like a steady drip on stone, shearing away the tender, leaving only a hollowed place, a cave like this cave, his spirit like these dogs bunched around him, a coven of sibyls noting his every grunt and twitch (ultimately, even language is superfluous), as if he were an octopus flayed alive, heart still pumping, one eye crazy with escape. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
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As if, with characteristic irony, he'd finally lived down to Plato's definition of man (two-legged and featherless), as if ninety years of denial had left him all string and knob, worked him over like a steady drip on stone, shearing away the tender, leaving only a hollowed place, a cave like this cave, his spirit like these dogs bunched around him, a coven of sibyls noting his every grunt and twitch (ultimately, even language is superfluous), as if he were an octopus flayed alive, heart still pumping, one eye crazy with escape. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
John Donne New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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