Bøger af Alan Birkelbach

Karla K. Morton's photographs are as sharp-edged as some of the tree branches and animal bones they depict. They are carefully composed and at the same time luminous. Her country buildings convey a touching nostalgia. And many of her landscapes capture the elegance and nobility of the natural world. Each of Alan Birkelbach's poems takes its cue from a Morton picture, stays true to the subject, then quickly-magically-moves into its own terrain, a region where image turns into memory and meditation. This combination of photograph-and-poem is highly satisfying. The two art forms are a perfect fit.

Every page of this fun-filled poetry book is bursting with delight for kids and adults alike. Texas Poet Laureate Alan Birkelbach tells you not only where Smurglets come from, but using captivating rhythms, goofy rhymes, and wonderfully made-up words he tells readers from ages 5 to 50 why Ogres Hate Okra, about what happens when Blob Junior Goes to Camp, and the dire consequences of losing your Galoopa! Delightfully illustrated by prize-winning artist Susan Halbower.

Poets Karla Morton and Alan Birkelbach began a journey to celebrate America's national parks' 100th anniversary, but for these two poets the sojourns quickly became something greater. Their journey, illustrated with gorgeous colour photos of all of America's grand national parks, is a feast for the eyes and heart.

Alan Birkelbach's tenth book of poetry, Meridienne Verte, is an existential romp through terrain that seems familiar at first - but changes before our very eyes. With each accessible poem, balancing wisdom with irreverence, Birkelbach invites readers in with simple and common language - and then leaves them in an environment not unlike the scientific explorers in his poem "A Little Conversation about Geometers" who have suddenly found themselves in a different place in the center of the earth, all rules of gravity and survival changed. It is their world, yes, but it isn't the same anymore - because someone asked a question that altered everything: "What use was there in measuring the stars...?" In so many of the poems, "When Those Choose to Talk" or "Atlas On His Day Off," for example, Reality (with a capital R) is so far away - but it isn't really. The poems are full of the mysterious minutiae of the reality we all know, transported to mythical and almost unbelievable settings. Whether it is the transient nature of a camisole failing off an invisible shoulder, or the misericordia in a church most of us will never visit, the implicit value of the inherent, far-off, and short-term treasure, and measure, is promoted to be one of hope and exuberance. Life may be short. But based on Birkelbach's poems it is well worth living.

This is the most complete selection of work by 2005 Texas State Poet Laureate Alan Birkelbach ever put in one volume. It brings together selections that represent his more recognizable pieces, work that has only been available in journals, work that has only been available in books that are out of print or unavailable, plus a generous selection of new work.

Talks about Birkelbach who writes of the Texas landscape and its people. He balances the ordinary and the phenomenal, the factual and the suppositional, the temporal and the eternal in poems remarkable for their depth of insight.