skylights
mister skylight
p skoogs first full length collection captures and presents the truth of the truth our under analyzed overlooked often fragile existences on earth . dave jarecki p skoogs use of language is disorientating vivid and surprising all the things i love about great poetry . nathan moore p ed skoog purposefully blindfolds us spins us around and dares us to find a target . he wants us to be unbalanced in our interaction with the work ; he wants our experience to be unsettling for the writing to arrive like a hostage an ear a finger in the mail from party at the dump . carolee sherwood p the stranger writes ed skoogs poetry is so ambitious it takes my breath away . . he knows how to braid pop culture into small personal melancholies and into large generosities . p x. j. kennedy writes this is the damnedest book . i love it like crazy . skoog is a dazzling new talent who not only promises but achieves . p the phrase mister skylight is an emergency signal to alert a ships 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 . p 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 familys 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 . p ... not to be the one who left is to live in an alarm . br the unstraightened bed . p but dont i always bring bright souvenirs from our travels br a feather a coin a bee astonishing in my palm . p minutes past your touch what our bodies were br is disappearing like a ship caught in polar ice . p 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 .