Book Description

Firmly rejecting the unabashed subjectivity and accompanying impenetrability of much contemporary verse , Alan Holder’s Sky Gazer, from first to last, makes its poems steadily available to the reader, assumed to be “a creature of feeling” and addressed directly. The reader is onboard for a train ride or in-step for a woodland walk. It continually registers that great commonality of human experience, the four seasons. The poems share the sights that come the poet’s way—so much of what he sees assumes the status of spectacle—the source of many of those arresting sights being the heavens, which Holder never tires of contemplating. He has a fondness for long, winding verse sentences; some poems consist of but a single one. Again and again, Holder alludes, sometimes implicitly, to works by great figures of the literary past—Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Melville, Twain, Yeats, Frost, Stevens, Eliot, Dylan Thomas—using them as springboards to go his own way. Repeatedly, his poems raise questions that do not admit of answers. Sky Gazer takes seriously one of the prescriptions for poetry that Stevens sets forth in Notes toward a Supreme Fiction: “It Must Give Pleasure.” “Firmly rejecting the unabashed subjectivity and accompanying impenetrability of much contemporary verse, Alan Holder’s Sky Gazer, from first to last, makes his free form verse steadily available to the reader, assumed to be ‘a creature of feeling’ and often addressed directly. The reader is onboard for a train ride or in-step for a woodland walk. Sky Gazer continually registers that great commonality of human experience, the four seasons. The poems share the sights that come the poet’s way-so much of what he sees assumes the status of spectacle-the source of many of those arresting sights being the heavens, which Holder never tires of contemplating. He has a fondness for long, winding verse sentences; some poems consist of but a single one. Again and again, Holder alludes, sometimes implicitly, to works by great figures of the literary past-Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Melville, Twain, Yeats, Frost, Stevens, Eliot, Dylan Thomas-using them as springboards to go his own way. Repeatedly, his poems raise questions that do not admit of answers. Sky Gazer is very highly recommended for personal reading lists, as well as community, college, and university Contemporary American Poetry collections.” —Midwest Book Review, Wisconsin Bookwatch: March 2016, James A. Cox