(some of) The Adventures of Carlyle, My Imaginary Friend

by Dainis Hazners

Overview

At first glance these poems (which read like one long odyssey) seem sweet and peaceful—like taking a walk in the woods. But then, things turn darker: a storm blows in—and with it some Aliens, Ghost and Ghoul, the Hanging Man. Luckily, Carlyle has a few good friends such as Ruth, the Hag, the Boy, who are staunch and true and faithful. A whistling-in-the-dark suspense alternately stimulates and enervates the witness.

“Carlyle is spore, and mild. / He is swoon & sherbet.” Endearing and kind, if not actually cruel, he is also cold and strange. He shapeshifts, transforming into Magician and Jester, Surgeon and Scientist, Cloud; he studies fire and mirrors and bores holes in his own skull, looking for heaven. Throughout his many adventures, which range from the ludicrous to the life-threatening, he flies into the light and carries the reader with him on his perplexing and fanciful journey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781587294815
Publisher:	University of Iowa Press
Publication date:	04/01/2004
Series:	Iowa Poetry Prize
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	136
File size:	143 KB

About the Author

Dainis Hazners lives near Story, Wyoming; for ten years he was co-owner of an independent bookshop in Sheridan. He has been the recipient of an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry and three fellowships from the Wyoming Arts Council. His work has been published in a variety of journals, including the Crab Creek Review, Plains Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, and Connecticut River Review, and in the anthologies Visions of Wyoming, If You Would Love Wyoming, and Deep West: A Wyoming Literary Guide. This is his first book.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Poetry begins

Editorial Reviews

‘We live in the mind. . . [and] if we live in the mind, we live with the imagination,’ says Stevens, naturally. Time spent with Dainis Hazners’ imaginary friend Mr. C goes beyond life-affirmation. This interior epic is so sonically—‘his song is like a forge / at full fire’—and conceptually animate that I feel augmented, awakened to a living that is simultaneously ‘many-shaded white’ and —sprung with darkness.’”—Ben Doyle, author of Radio, Radio

From the Publisher