Kevin Stein – författare

Winner of Poetry's Frederick Bock Prize and the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, Kevin Stein casts a wide net over the "ineffable befuddlement" of everyday life. His poems render history's chance larder of the consecrated and profane from which we ransom our fate.Often improvisational and always lyrical, Stein's poems move effortlessly through the art of Beckmann and Degas, the music of Bob Marley and garage bands, and the pathos of cancer patients, factory workers, and victims of bigotry. Insightful and refreshingly unaffected, Chance Ransom explores the shifting shore between self and other with clarity and compassion.

In this ambitious collection, Kevin Stein enters the volatile intersection of private lives and larger public history. In poems variously formal and experimental, improvisational and narrative, wisely silly and playfully forlorn, Stein renders the human carnival flexed across the tattooed bulk of “history’s bicep.” Musical and refreshingly unaffected, Stein’s poems yoke the domains of high and low art. His poems address subjects by turns surprising, edgy, and humorous. They offer musings on the Slinky and the atomic bomb, elegies for a miscarried pregnancy and the late physicist Edward Teller, reflections on night-shift factory work and President Eisenhower’s golf caddy, and meditations on the politics of post-colonialism and a youthful antiwar streaking incident. Against this vivid backdrop parades a motley cast of American characters seeking wiry balance in a fragile world.

Stein's poems reveal the constancy of the American quest for work, family, and dignity, even as they evoke the bruised but still redemptive fruit of human compassion.

Winner of Poetry's Frederick Bock Prize and the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, Kevin Stein casts a wide net over the "ineffable befuddlement" of everyday life. His poems render history's chance larder of the consecrated and profane from which we ransom our fate.Often improvisational and always lyrical, Stein's poems move effortlessly through the art of Beckmann and Degas, the music of Bob Marley and garage bands, and the pathos of cancer patients, factory workers, and victims of bigotry. Insightful and refreshingly unaffected, Chance Ransom explores the shifting shore between self and other with clarity and compassion.

In this ambitious collection, Kevin Stein enters the volatile intersection of private lives and larger public history. In poems variously formal and experimental, improvisational and narrative, wisely silly and playfully forlorn, Stein renders the human carnival flexed across the tattooed bulk of “history’s bicep.” Musical and refreshingly unaffected, Stein’s poems yoke the domains of high and low art. His poems address subjects by turns surprising, edgy, and humorous. They offer musings on the Slinky and the atomic bomb, elegies for a miscarried pregnancy and the late physicist Edward Teller, reflections on night-shift factory work and President Eisenhower’s golf caddy, and meditations on the politics of post-colonialism and a youthful antiwar streaking incident. Against this vivid backdrop parades a motley cast of American characters seeking wiry balance in a fragile world.

"The great pleasure of this book is the writing itself. Not only is it free of academic and ‘lit-crit' jargon, it is lively prose, often deliciously witty or humorous, and utterly contemporary. Poetry's Afterlife has terrific classroom potential, from elementary school teachers seeking to inspire creativity in their students, to graduate students in MFA programs, to working poets who struggle with the aesthetic dilemmas Stein elucidates, and to teachers of poetry on any level."--- Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Arizona State University "Kevin Stein is the most astute poet-critic of his generation, and this is a crucial book, confronting the most vexing issues which poetry faces in a new century."---David Wojahn, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityAt a time when most commentators fixate on American poetry's supposed "death," Kevin Stein's Poetry's Afterlife instead proposes the vitality of its aesthetic hereafter. The essays of Poetry's Afterlife blend memoir, scholarship, and personal essay to survey the current poetry scene, trace how we arrived here, and suggest where poetry is headed in our increasingly digital culture. The result is a book both fetchingly insightful and accessible. Poetry's spirited afterlife has come despite, or perhaps because of, two decades of commentary diagnosing American poetry as moribund if not already deceased. With his 2003 appointment as Illinois Poet Laureate and his forays into public libraries and schools, Stein has discovered that poetry has not given up its literary ghost. For a fated art supposedly pushing up aesthetic daisies, poetry these days is up and about in the streets, schools, and universities, and online in new and compelling digital forms. It flourishes among the people in a lively if curious underground existence largely overlooked by national media. It's this second life, or better, Poetry's Afterlife, that his book examines and celebrates.Kevin Stein is Caterpillar Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Bradley University and has served as Illinois Poet Laureate since 2003, having assumed the position formerly held by Gwendolyn Brooks and Carl Sandburg. He is the author of numerous books of poetry and criticism.digitalculturebooksis an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

Third in the classic Preludes series.First launched over a decade ago, the Preludes series has continued to prove popular with Dragonlance fans. This re-release of Brothers Majere showcases a new look for the forthcoming recovers of the remainder of the series. The title features cover art from lead Dragonlance artist Matt Stawicki and includes a short introduction by New York Times best-selling author Margaret Weis.Before the War of the Lance...Darkness and unrest are growing. People disappear in the night, and there are rumors of foul forces at work. To this land caught in the grips of a nameless terror come Raistlin and Caramon Majere, two brothers--one a wizard, one a warrior--who are trying to eke out a living on the backroads of Ansalon. Desperate for money, they agree to take on a job in the backwater village of Mereklar. But they soon discover they may be in over their heads. A beautiful noblewoman, a savage beast, the Queen of Darkness, and a spellbound kender will decide the fates of the brothers Majere.