Product Description
If you're a fan of 'moon, spoon, June' poetry, Smoke & Thunder is not for you. There are no sweet rhymes to be found inside these pages, no saccharine poetics spouted strictly for the sake of linguistic beauty. The free verse here, however lyrical at times, rides the hard edge of the road, having issued from the brain of a man who has pushed himself to dangerous extremes more times than he cares to recall, but always survived for the recounting, torn and tattered though he may have been. Many of the poems here are brutal and unrelenting, rife with tragedy and anger, but always honest to a fault. And yet the true heart of the poet shows through, as in the memorial poem for his father and poems about his grandparents.Whether over coffee in a restaurant with his peers, or passing a bottle of wine around a burn barrel at a junkyard, this poet's home is the world. The more than one hundred poems in Smoke & Thunder, most of which were written during the past two decades, represent a small part of a lifetime's work for a man past 60.
About the Author
Jim Chandler is a former journalist who lives in his native Tennessee and works in freelance writing, editing, publishing and web development. His poems, short stories and articles have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers during the past 35 years, from small press and college literary journals to major mainstream publications. He is the author of several chapbooks and his poetry appeared in the highly acclaimed The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, a 685-page anthology published by Thunder's Mouth Press in October 1999.Chandler founded Thunder Sandwich magazine in the eighties and currently operates an on-line version of that 'zine, which has included the work of writers and artists ranging from established figures in mainstream art and literature to idols of the post-beat and underground scenes.He is currently working on a novel slated for publication in 2003.
