Humor

Pumpkin Chucking: Poems

Name: Pumpkin Chucking: Poems
Author: Stephen Scaer
ISBN: 9781927409121

by Stephen Scaer

ISBN: 9781927409121

Description

Poetry. Stephen Scaer's PUMPKIN CHUCKING is a harvest of wit and enlightenment, gleaned from everyday situations. Scaer shows impressive formal dexterity, and inventive use of nonce and received forms-sonnet, double-dact... Poetry. Stephen Scaer's PUMPKIN CHUCKING is a harvest of wit and enlightenment, gleaned from everyday situations. Scaer shows impressive formal dexterity, and inventive use of nonce and received forms-sonnet, double-dactyl, Old-English-style alliterative meter; he turns the limerick on its head as it transforms into a humor-laden meditative tool in sequences such as 'Mid-Life Limericks' and 'Classical Limericks.' Scaer's delivery is immediate, simple but never simplistic, laying bare the human condition to reveal that 'The triumphs that [we] seek/ are held for their own sake, / and shower us with grace/ like petals on the grass.' This finalist for the 2012 Able Muse Book Award is a rare achievement in its deft marriage of the lighthearted and sublime. It is a book to relish from start to finish. Right from the opening sonnet in PUMPKIN CHUCKING, the poignant 'Hannah at Ten, ' you'll recognize Scaer as an outstanding lyric poet. But the prevailing voice in this collection belongs to a hugely entertaining, middle-aged, middle-class Everyman writing about the everyday. Take the lifeguard, sung in Old-English-style alliterative meter--'whistle-whirler, ' 'Thane of the Poconos.' Or the Hercules who can divert rivers into Augean stables with no hassles from the EPA. (And both of these pale compared to Scaer's 'Classical Limericks.') Some of the poems are exquisitely lyrical: 'Light Box, ' 'Raspberry Patch, ' 'Long Trail.' Still, what you take away from the book is Scaer's deadpan humor--a wit that's wicked but not mean. Often as not, the speaker is himself the target. And the more the guy makes fun of himself, the more we love him. He speaks for us all.--Deborah Warren Stephen Scaer's PUMPKIN CHUCKING celebrates the New England landscape while still being universal... and it surprises us with wit in the winking way of Frost.--A.M. Juster, from the Foreword A collection with a range of forms as broad as Stephen Scaer's PUMPKIN CHUCKING can read like an exercise book--or li

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#humor #funny #comedy #lightread