Why Dogs Stopped Flying

by Kenneth Brewer

Overview

The solid rightness of image after image in Ken Brewer’s poetry was never better than in Why Dogs Stopped Flying. His familiar style is plain-spoken, his humor reliable and
self-ironic.  Yet, in this collection perhaps more than his earlier work, the particularity of the poet’s insight into the physical world and the warmth of his affection for it combine
to create an unexpected transcendence. Beasts and bodies are transformed in his lines, and our dim, unremarkable lives on this shadowed earth become somehow more
luminous—small words to the moon, small suns opening in the dark.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780874215403
Publisher:	Utah State University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	56
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Influential for over three decades as a poet, writer, teacher, and mentor in the Intermountain West, Kenneth W. Brewer published ten books of poetry; hundreds of individual poems in literary journals; dozens of essays and articles; he also gave countless readings, and conducted writing workshops throughout the Western states. Professor of English at Utah State University for 32 years, Brewer served on the Board of Directors of the Utah Arts Council and was Utah's poet laureate from 2003 to 2005. As this book was going to print, Ken Brewer passed away at his home in Providence, Utah, surrounded by family and friends.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS Why Dogs Stopped Flying5 Belted Galloways6 Broad-tailed Hummingbirds7 Brother Slug8 Cat9 Chickadee Drive-In10 Coyote on a Cloud of Nitrogen11 Curl12 Dermatophagoides15 Field Guide16 Fishing Before the Frost17 Fox at Play18 Goat's Milk19 Goldenrod Spider20 Great Spangled Fritillary21 Henslow's Sparrow22 Home23 How to Train a Horse to Burn24 Largest Living Organism on Earth25 Learning to Draw26 Loons27 Magpie Springs30 Martha31 Mourning Cloak32 "Now the Sun Has Come to Earth"33 Old Fences35 Scarlet Penstemon36 Sheep37 Solitary Vireo38 The Courage of Frogs39 The Dignity of Cockroaches40 The Many Beings41 The Silliest Debate42 The Tarantula Hawk43 Watching the Waterfall44 What Happens to Pansies in Utah45 What I Learned from the Joshua Forest46 After the Big Bang47

Editorial Reviews

Ken Brewer loved life, perfected his own art of right living, and graciously accepted his role and responsibility as earth's caretaker. In his poetic Bestiary, we see his metaphorical alter-ego, the joyous spokesman for and champion of the earth and the earth's have-nots. The voice of these poems is a radical departure from Dr. Kenneth Brewer, Poet Laureate of Utah, scholar and archetypal gentleman. Here we have Ken-of-the-earth, Old Mongrel, keen-nosed, sharp-eyed, quick-witted and on point. These poems are as refreshing as a face-slap of cold water on a crisp morning.

David Lee

From the Publisher