Love, War, Fire, Wind: Looking Out from North America's Skull
A collection of poems & prose by Eliot Katz, art by William T. Ayton
NEW: Poetry.About.com chooses "Love, War, Fire, Wind" as one of their Best Books of 2009. Please click here.
Paperback: 184 pages—includes poems & prose by Eliot Katz & a full-color cover, 60 b/w ink drawings by William T. Ayton.
Price: $18.00 US.
ISBN: 978-0-578-00650-5
Front cover painting: North America's Skull by William T. Ayton.
Here is a link to the preview page on Ayton's web site, with a selection of artworks & poems from the book.
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Back cover blurbs:
PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS WORK:
"Another classic New Jersey bard! E. Katz has created his own original poetics for personal observation, animated discourse, critical insight, fantasy, and communal vision."
—Allen Ginsberg
"Eliot Katz's poems are wonderful in their celebration of life and rhythmic verbal exuberance, set against the atrocities of now."
—Adrienne Rich, about Unlocking the Exits
PRAISE FOR LOVE, WAR, FIRE, WIND:
"I love these poems, which are full of passion and thought. Eliot Katz is among a handful of contemporary American poets whose work speaks to me."
—Howard Zinn
"One of the amazing facts about Eliot Katz as a poet is that you can just never predict what he will do next. His sparkling mind, his acute political savvy, his comedy and his all-embracing warmth are always there. He is going to save the world even if it doesn’t want to be saved. And he is going to enjoy tossing tasty language around while he’s doing it. Eliot is right up there carrying the torch for Whitman and Ginsberg, keeping their vision alive and well. But who knew that he was going to turn into a tender love poet? I've never seen love poems like the ones in here. And who knew that this urban activist was going to transform himself into the companion of a fire-watcher, gazing at the world from a forest peak in the Canadian Rockies? Love, War, Fire, Wind, is his best book yet, a must-read for anyonewho believes poetry can still celebrate life."
—Alicia Ostriker
"Here is one of our greatest poets looking out from North America's skull onto the streets of change and protest, with nonstop insight, orange groves of facts, and wit. Eliot Katz is a poet of clear American progressive poetic consciousness. Love, War, Fire, Wind collects his direct Postbeat social chronicling of the Bush years. Let these poems that veer with surrealistic influence and a masterful grasp of media vernacular be the measure of any government and a gateway for what's to come."
—Jim Cohn
"Eliot Katz, spiritual son of Whitman & Ginsberg, is a poet of hypnotic velocity, of anger that has risen to aria, of a comic (& sometimes elegiac) high seriousness. His is Walt's 'primal sanity' that in this faithful & furious book—Love, War, Fire, Wind—refuses to desert us."
—William Heyen
"William T. Ayton has mastered the art of drawing with ink and brush. Like the words of Eliot Katz, his brush marks the page with deliberate force. A broken eggshell, weapons and dreams, a stroke that can not be taken back. This book is an affirmation of truth."
—Tim Slowinski
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