The Follower's Tale |
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Stephen Roger Powers |
ISBN: 978-1-907056-20-8 Page Count: 100 Publication Date: Thursday, October 01, 2009 Cover Artwork: Maura Harmon |
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About this BookDear Stephen, R.T. Smith
Zecchinos, rickshaws, Gitanes, the Dollywood Express, gunshots, crack, Lorine Niedecker, and the Chasing Rainbows Museum are all woven together in these large-languaged, visioned, spiritual, sensual poems. These poems are smart, energetic, and surprising. They look at America and beyond to universal desires & appetites, all through the microcosm of Dollywood & its rhinestone founder. Susan Firer
Dolly Parton once said that what she wants to do as a performer is make them laugh a little, make them cry a little, scare the hell out of them and go home. Stephen Roger Powers has taken this to heart and written a book of poems that gives us America through the lens of one of our greatest unnatural resources. Read it and weep, and laugh and cover your eyes. This is Dollywood. Dorianne Laux
The poetry of Stephen Roger Powers has remarkable qualities of provocation and social investigation; its ambivalence is usually comic. Powers combines insight and delight in Americana with a fervent and ancient sense of worship. James Liddy
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Author Biography
Stephen Roger Powers was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in the
cornfields of nearby Sun Prairie. While working on his PhD in English
he wrote a stand-up act about his hearing impairment and performed for
several years in comedy clubs and casinos around the American Midwest.
Today he splits his time between Milwaukee and Georgia, where he
teaches at Gordon College and enjoys the beaches of Tybee Island. The
Follower's Tale is his first book. |
Read a sample from this bookOnly $2 to See the World's Largest Model Railroad Display! |
Reviews24th November 2009: Read an interview by David Duhr with Stephen Roger Powers on the Fringe Magazine Blog >> Just because you aren't leading the way doesn't mean you don't have your own story. The Follower's Tale is a collection of poetry from Stephen Roger Powers in his first anthology of poetry. Aiming to tell an offbeat and original story, he brings readers a unique brand of poetry that hasn't been seen much before. "The Follower's Tale" is a choice pick for poetry lovers, highly recommended. "The Night Before Dolly's Parade": I watched an old man watch his son on stage/in Master Harold. I ignored the play/and traced his laughs, his lips, his nose, the way/his eyebrows flew up when his son engaged/the audience in something humorous./After the show I drove all night through states/too flat for companionship. No complaints,/no one to make me feel ridiculous/when I cranked up Dolly's dulcimers down/through cincy on my way to Dollywood./I named my future son, sang along, looked/behind while I drove up hills south of town./My eyes coffeed open to watch for deer/as the rhinestone skyline sank out of my mirror. |