Bøger af Eugene Stelzig

The title-Remarkable It Is-refers to the poet's calling to notice things that most of us take for granted (such as our breathing and our hearts beating) but that actually constitute the miracle of our being alive. These poems range from the playfully wistful, to the probingly thoughtful (about old age and the specter of mortality as well as our place in the universe), and the satirical (especially about contemporary politics and world events). The poems in this new collection reflect a "late life" outlook, but they also speak to perennial topics and experiences that readers of all ages should be able to relate to.

Assorted Selfscriptings 1964-1985 is a selection of Eugene Stelzig's poetry from five manuscript volumes. The poems are expressions of moods and states of mind of a changing self-or more accurately, selves. They are traces or scraps, remnants or remainders and reminders of them. Through these often confessional and autobiographical verses, Stelzig speaks to the states of mind and moods all pass through in life's perennial journey. The issues these poems touch on are at once intimately personal as well as engaged with the politics of daily life and the larger world we all inhabit. In this delight-studded collection, we have the first twenty years of a lifelong love affair with poetry. In addition to considerable erudition, the author brings keen observational powers directed at both the external and internal worlds, as well as a refreshingly self-deprecating wit. Whether recalling his childhood in Post-War Austria, describing an encounter with a "dowsing witch," imagining hunting elephants in Western New York, or writing tender lyrics to his beloved Elsje, Eugene Stelzig brings us "September Gifts." He urges us to "let these assorted selfscriptings / disseminate beyond the margins / become and then unbecome you / let them multiply beyond / our simple mees and wees/ disperse us into other spaces and places." -John Roche, Associate Professor of English, Rochester Institute of Technology

"Bob Dylan's Career as a Blakean Visionary and Romantic" was completed in 1976 as an invited contribution to a volume of academic and scholarly essays on Dylan to be published by the Popular Press and edited by Patrick Morrow. After the volume was accepted and the publication contract was signed, the Popular Press reneged on the agreement, apparently because it felt the volume would fall between the cracks: Dylan's popular fan base would not be interested in a book of academic articles, and academics would not be interested in a pop culture idol. Obviously things have changed considerably in the intervening decades! This discussion-written almost four decades ago-of the deep affinities between Dylan's song poetry and the Romantics, especially William Blake, is one of the early "scholarly" as opposed to popular appreciations of Dylan's art and his oeuvre from his first album up to and including Desire (1976). This book is also available as a free ebook at http: //minerva.geneseo.edu/bob-dylans-career-as-a-blakean-visionary-romantic/

Stephen Behrendt, in his review of my poetry collection wrote:"These poems are a meditation but also a celebration--of the peace and fullness that maturity brings . . . Each season has its own mood, its own mode. but it is all part of a single larger design; this fact of nature sets all in perspective."