Mister Skylight

The time has come to shamelessly flog the latest new book from a Ward Six contributor, Ed Skoog's wonderful collection Mister Skylight. I've been reading various drafts of these poems for years now, and have had the pleasure of watching this collection gradually evolve into one of the most assured, extraordinary debuts I've ever seen. Ed is just a great writer, and this is a great book. From Copper Canyon, Ed's publisher:

The phrase Mister Skylight is an emergency signal to alert a ship's crew, but not its passengers, of an emergency. This debut collection is alert to disasters--the flooding of New Orleans and the wildfires of California--and also to the hope of rescue. Interior dramas of the self are played out in a clash of poetic traditions, exuberant imagery, and wild metaphor.

Here's a sample, selected almost at random, since it reminds me of eating lunch with Ed, which is probably the #1 most frequent and pleasurable thing I've done with Ed over the past fifteen years. It's from "Recent Changes at Canter's Deli."

The telephone is no longer upstairs.
Cut fruit in cold cup will never be whole.
Nothing is where it was. The plate
is beside the bowl. My mind's all fucked up,
distorted, pale light reflected on stainless steel
of the walk-in cooler. It is not where it was.
Here's the spike to build a body of receipt.
Sweat collects on the waterpitcher lip
like the goodbye of a woman I loved.
The clerk bends his body to pray the miracle
of the handwashing station, turns knife to loaf.
The present pours into the pepper shaker.

Echt Skoog, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Buy this awesome piece of work.

What came in the mail

Here's a hodgepodge of stuff from this week's mailbag. The main thing was my box of books from the UK. About twice a year I put in an Amazon.co.uk order, so that I can get my hands on some of my favorite British writers' books before they come out here. Mostly mysteries. In this fall's box I've found new stuff from Tom McCarthy (and by the way, how on earth did the guy get such a huge Wikipedia page? Consider this an official request: somebody please plump mine up, I don't have the chutzpah to do it myself), Karin Fossum (not a police procedural this time around, but apparently a literary venture), and Arnaldur Indridason, along with the latest from Barbara Vine and P. D. James.

I've read the latter two, and thought they were both OK. Vine/Rendell is reliably good, especially in her Vine mode, but this new one (The Birthday Present) is strangely subdued and unsuspenseful. And the James (The Private Patient) feels a bit as though she's going through the motions. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the act of reading these books, and picked them up with great eagerness in the evening, despite their shortcomings. Why? It's the way these writers create and maintain their settings. In Vine's case, it's London, with particular attention to the workings of Parliament; in James's it is Dorset, and a former manor house that has been converted into a private plastic-surgery hospital. There is a lushness and comforting realism to these places; both writers are masters at describing streets and roads and interiors, never in terribly thrilling prose, but always with steadfast professionalism. Both books were genuine pleasures in a personally anxious week.

Yesterday's mail also brought the latest Paris Review, featuring two items of note: a new short story by a guy I've never heard of, Jesse Ball (yes, yes, that website is pretentiously uninformative, but hey), and a new poem, "October," by our own Ed Skoog. The Ball story is about a starving poet who applies for a mysterious job--he fills out a bewildering application, and then endures an interview with an inscrutable man; the result is a hundred-thousand-dollar gig trying to avoid being murdered by another applicant. It sounds hopelessly Chuck-Palahniuk, I know, but it's really more like a less tired, more driven Paul Auster--spare and cryptic without seeming coy. I strongly suspect it's the first chapter of Ball's forthcoming novel.

Ed's poem I have read before, in a manuscript copy of his forthcoming book, Mister Skylight, coming out from Copper Canyon around the same time next year as my new book. The money shot:

It's eleven-eleven, time
to make my daily wish,
catch the stilt legs of those
two birds who land twice
a day inside the clock.

And finally, for fans of my better half: Rhian's return is nigh. Stay tuned.

Here Comes Ed Skoog

Hey, readers--we're very excited to welcome our first guest blogger, Ed Skoog, who will be posting later this day. We're hoping he'll make himself at home here and post whenever he pleases.

Ed sent me the following woefully inadequate bio: "Ed Skoog is a writer living in rural southern California." I'll resist the temptation to fill in the blanks; but, suffice to say, Ed is one of our oldest friends, with whom we have always had the kind of conversations about literature that this blog strives to recreate. We urge you to enjoy his contributions to Ward Six.

A Couple of Long Poems by Ed Skoog

Why, check it out: new long poems by Ward Six chum Ed Skoog. A sample, from "Mister Skylight":

I had forgotten that I had forgotten. I

had one hand in one century's big finish,
a new kind of metal, a bionic art:

it's a story my mother tells, thinking
of the wrong boy. She is old now.
And when my children yet unborn, die,

these stories will be forgotten,
like umbrellas in the coat check.

Read the rest on the online magazine Bedazzler.