Time to Pre-order

I just got the proof copy of The Icarus Sketches / The Icarus Series in the mail yesterday. This volume is going to rock. It's accordion-fold, so if you open it from one side, it's my poems. If you open it from the other, it's Crystal's poems. There's a huge variety of material despite everything being about Icarus, so you should consider assigning it to your class if you're teaching Intro to Creative Writing in the Fall (hint hint).

I'll add photos of the actual construction and cover image once those get sorted out in a working copy. In the meantime, here are sample poems from Crystal and me - if you like what you read even a little bit, head over to Seven Kitchens and tell Ron you'd like to be on the pre-order list (instructions in his sidebar). It's going to be an absolute steal at only $7.

2 poems from JeFF:

Icarus Comes in First

Ten years old and quick as light,
Icarus races downhill to victory
in the annual soapbox derby, the result
of late nights in his father's workshop,
but not his work. He decides the next year
to dabble in physics, something about gravity,
and gives up science after winning
the Fair. He develops and discards
interest in woodworking, car repair,
loses patience when the lines he produces
for sophomore Art are not the perfect
proportions of an engineer, sputters
excuses for undone math assignments,
Ariadne's panties, and the picture of a white
bull in his dresser drawer, wrecks
the car, steals from Minos, spends
a night in jail. Atop the school,
he spreads the wings his father made,
steps to the edge and leaps -
racing gravity and Daedalus downhil,
all on his own, quick as light,
and winning.

Icarus Interviews Orville

I: Were you close?
O: Wilbur and me? Closer than any brothers you'd ever meet. We even married sisters.
I: I mean to the sun.
O: Well, I was only ten feet off the ground that first time.
I: Did you feel the heat?
O: It was December.
I: ...
O: Wilbur had the most controlled flight - 853 feet.
I: ...
O: Of course, it wasn't our only attempt.
I: ...
O: ...
[Interviewer leaves]
O: Yes, in all my veins, I felt it.


A poem from Crystal:

III : : Hubris

the boy was of boxsprings
born of a lighthouse he knows
that you live not by birds alone
that watching is a tongue that flies