SEAN AKERMAN
The Magnitudes
The poems in this collection draw upon prose poetry and free verse in order to explore the relationship between history and personal experience. Moments local and grand from the last 150 years of American life are juxtaposed with autobiography to evoke the presence of the dead, the ordinary, and the passing of time.
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"Sean Akerman knows that to capture the pulse of aboriginal reality requires indirection, and renders encounters with phenomena as they occur: fleet, conditioned, appearing in a nanosecond-wide aperture already entailed by public and intimate histories. His poems shadow this explosive coupling of two centuries, and Magnitudes should be read now and for a long time because they own the kind of sanctified surprise and dread we look for in the most indelible poems." -Mark Nickels, author of Cicada
"These poems explore the chasm between the past and the present, using personal experience as a bridge, as if memory were up for interpretation. Akerman's poems are intelligent and thoughtful as he tries to 'hold one reality within another.' Using prose poems, followed by free verse, he asks readers to view the world from another perspective. In this volume, Akerman 'write[s] anthems to those who would no/longer hear them.'"
-Karla Houston, Wisconsin Poet Laureate, 2017-2018
"It is Akerman’s ability to capture the timelessness of moments that make these poems such a vibrant part of this collection. 'When a Canadian goose alighted on the lawn, what was more/perfect than running to that built wall of wood?' Such a scene could have happened during many times, not just during the life of the poet, and this is the real power of the collection. When combined with the historical prose poems, these moments become connectors, perhaps even doorways through time.”
-At the Inkwell
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Available here
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"Sean Akerman knows that to capture the pulse of aboriginal reality requires indirection, and renders encounters with phenomena as they occur: fleet, conditioned, appearing in a nanosecond-wide aperture already entailed by public and intimate histories. His poems shadow this explosive coupling of two centuries, and Magnitudes should be read now and for a long time because they own the kind of sanctified surprise and dread we look for in the most indelible poems." -Mark Nickels, author of Cicada
"These poems explore the chasm between the past and the present, using personal experience as a bridge, as if memory were up for interpretation. Akerman's poems are intelligent and thoughtful as he tries to 'hold one reality within another.' Using prose poems, followed by free verse, he asks readers to view the world from another perspective. In this volume, Akerman 'write[s] anthems to those who would no/longer hear them.'"
-Karla Houston, Wisconsin Poet Laureate, 2017-2018
"It is Akerman’s ability to capture the timelessness of moments that make these poems such a vibrant part of this collection. 'When a Canadian goose alighted on the lawn, what was more/perfect than running to that built wall of wood?' Such a scene could have happened during many times, not just during the life of the poet, and this is the real power of the collection. When combined with the historical prose poems, these moments become connectors, perhaps even doorways through time.”
-At the Inkwell
____
Available here