Dennis Hinrichsen
Co-Winner of the聽2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize聽
Skin Music聽seeks provisional Edens of being and knowing across a spectrum of ever-changing鈥攆looded, flooding鈥攍andscapes. The central motifs, skin and music, are lenses to this inquiry as the poems branch out from a Midwest river town ethos, the geography of family and the breakdown of the local body to the larger, more permanent skins of poetry, art and music. The poems 鈥渢ry on鈥� dialysis and Celan, they 鈥渢ry on鈥� Kline and Parkinson鈥檚, they reach out against the shutting down of each moment 600 years into a future built on the chords of a John Cage composition. Lyrical and driven, they strive for that shared human desire of residence in a believable, knowable place.
"The kingdom of a lake harvested for ice, Rilke鈥檚 zombie angels, radioactive time aging the electric heart鈥攖he poems in Skin Music tantalize the ear while jumpstarting the body. Here the heart, that overtaxed organ, gets nailed to its grief again and again, but that doesn鈥檛 mean this book refuses wonder. In fact, it insists: 鈥渂lood wants an angel but all it has is Monday.鈥� Musical to the point of breathlessness, Hinrichsen鈥檚 lines remind us that even in death, a body is still journeying, still becoming all it will be. These poems are about these journeys鈥攖hese rivers, these floods, these baptisms, this kiss a mother bestows on a child鈥檚 face like a cure, this man鈥檚 hand lain on his dead mother鈥檚 leg, this cat resting its living weight on an ankle, the lightest of tethers in a flood-wrung world."
-Traci Brimhall
"Dennis Hinrichsen鈥檚聽Skin Music聽is packed with shocks that end up seeming inevitable鈥攖hat鈥檚 their magic, and their wonder. Each word feels carved onto the page, precise, resonant. The sharp edges of memory fragments fuse into each other to create waves of transcendence. Even the white spaces of these poems buzz and glow with electric heat. Ride the mad music of this fine, fine collection."
-Jim Daniels
"The poems of Skin Music are cinematic and personal, a roiling autobiographical聽medley that is always looking outward. From 'The preacher鈥檚 hands still聽snorkeling my mouth' to the boy soldier with his toe on a trigger, Hinrichsen鈥檚聽details dive into the everyday 'white heat' while detailing the entombments聽and unravelings of the lives around him."
-Rebecca Morgan Frank
鈥淟ess the Mark Twain of popular imagination than the Harry Crews of unflinching memoir, Hinrichsen populates Skin Music with bullies and molesters, the 鈥榮hard-splintered wreckage鈥� filtered now through knowledge of the poetry of Celan, the music of Cage, and the art of Kline. 鈥楽hook foil鈥攖hat鈥檚 what a river is.鈥� His search for belief beyond the past, for 鈥榯he godface鈥� in whichever incarnation it may reside, deepens these richly textured yet starkly beautiful poems.鈥�
-Michael Waters
Read Z.G. Tomaszewski's interview with Dennis...聽
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