Poetry. 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. Ed Skoog, who worked for years in the basement of a museum in New Orleans, developed personal connections to objects and paintings. "Working on an exhibition about the building trades was important to this book," he writes. "Spending weeks listening to the oral histories of plasterers, steeplejacks, and carpenters connected me to my own family's stories." Marked by uncommonly intense and considered use of language, Skoog demonstrates a rich attention to form and allusive narrative as he attends to the details of contemporary politics, culture, place, and relationships.

Author City: SEATTLE, WA USA

Ed Skoog was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1971. He earned degrees from Kansas State University and the University of Montana. His poems have been published in many magazines, including Poetry, American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review. He lives in Seattle and is a writer-in-residence at Richard Hugo House.

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Matt Soucy @ Coldfront