A Poet Playing Doctor

By: Daniel Klawitter

Daniel Klawitter is a poet capable of great sweetness and formal grace, a poet who can imagine that "We are little dramas encased in flesh- // As we discover the heart of silence," but do not be deceived. Klawitter is also a poet of sly humor, who imagines communists responding to Marx's comments about modest loving that "In the midst of class struggle / there's always time to snuggle." But again-do not be deceived. At the root, Klawitter is a passionate poet who loves life deeply but also embraces his own complicated faith. This passion bursts through again and again, in cries of grief- "O god, my grief is a child / I hold as a thief / might hold his last night / of freedom..." and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, where "You might see every wound / in the world as your own." He also directly faces that sympathy's political realities, from suburban greed and anomie to misguided immigration policies to industrial accidents. A passionate and loving anti-fundamentalist, he can in one breath say "God, I hope the end / of the world is nigh / for these miniscule men / and their unconscious / self-hatreds," and then in the next tell us, following William Sloane Coffin Jr., that "religion is a crutch, / but what makes you think / you don't limp?" We are fortunate to have among us such a rich poet, who quarrels so meaningfully with himself, illuminating thereby our struggles as well as his own. -David J. Rothman, author of The Book of Catapults and Part of the Darkness Klawitter's take on religion is interesting, as a subject that often has people, and writers, on one "side" or the other. But you will also find in these pages a poem built on an experience at a Denver soul food caf?, a non-apology poem for liking sausage, a poem about his wife eating a pomegranate ("a bloody and laborious affair"), his grandmother in dementia, and a falling snowflake that becomes the occasion for an epiphany. Some are serious, while others verge with a punch on what might delightfully be called 'heavy light verse.' -Robert W. King, author of Old Man Laughing and Some of These Days

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0692529241
• ISBN13: 9780692529249
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: White Violet Press
• Length: 126 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"