Description
Poetry. In accessible poems that are much like stories, David Lee Garrison finds ambiguity and mystery beneath the surface of everyday experience. He rewrites the Biblical creation myth, positing Dog before Man; he imagines John Keats as a baseball player; he watches children play Hide and Seek and rejoice in finding and being found; he ponders the epitaphs in an old graveyard; and, he remembers a singer who came in one measure too early on the Hallelujah Chorus. The poet envisions life as a meandering journey through a summer afternoon by the river—humid and intense, with revelation everywhere, like leaves and shadows on the water.
Author Bio
David Lee Garrison was born in Bremerton, Washington. Professor Garrison taught Spanish and Portuguese at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, from 1979 until his retirement in 2009. He has published a book and many articles on Spanish Literature, as well as translations of Spanish poets from Lope de Vega to Gloria Fuertes, including collections of the work of Nobel Laureate Vicente Aleixandre (with Willis Barnstone), José Bergamín, and Pedro Salinas. His poetry and translations have appeared widely in journals and anthologies. Two poems from his book, Sweeping the Cemetery, were read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac, and one was included in the Keillor anthology, Good Poems, American Places. The title poem from his book, "Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro," was featured by United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser on his website, American Life in Poetry, and read by Game of Thrones star Tara Fitzgerald on the BBC in London. He won the Paul Laurence Dunbar Poetry Prize in 2009 and was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014. In 2017 his poem, "Chant of Change," was selected by Youngstown's public art and literary project, Words Made Visible, to be stamped into a sidewalk of the city near Youngstown State University. David Lee Garrison lives in Oakwood, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton, with his wife, Suzanne Kelly-Garrison, a novelist, poet, and law lecturer at Wright State University.
Author City: DAYTON, OH USA