High Water Mark: Prose Poems (Pitt Poetry Series) - Softcover

Shumate, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822958589 ISBN 13: 9780822958581

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004

Synopsis

Everyday mindreading, a house full of Buddhas, and the papaya scent of the soul. An interview with Custer at a place of his choosing, “probably a steakhouse.” The ability of dogs to smell the uncool.



Hitler's barber imagines what might have been if only he'd leaned his weight into the razor. An oblivious Coronado narrowly avoids an ambush on the American plains. Freud lecherously lifts the skirt of a Mexican housekeeper who has far too much work to be bothered by “a pillar of modern thought. Or just some dirty old man.”



In lesser hands such disparate elements might fly wildly out of control. But in David Shumate's understated, brilliant prose poems, they come together in miraculously vivid riffs.



The narrator of the title poem rhapsodizes, “I wouldn't mind seeing another good flood before I die. It's been dry for decades. Next time I think I'll just let go and drift downstream and see where I end up.” Shumate's deft and refreshing collection takes us to amazing places with its plainspoken meditations.

About this title

About the Author

David Shumate is the author of High Water Mark, winner of the 2003 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Atlanta Review, Mississippi Review, and Mid-American Review, among other publications. Shumate is poet-in-residence at Marian College in Indianapolis, Indiana.

From the Back Cover

"David Shumate's High Water Mark is absolutely fresh and unpredictable. . . . You will be surprised by your confrontation with the utterly first rate."-Jim Harrison

"Just when the possibilities of the prose poem seem exhausted, along comes David Shumate. Beneath his deceptively simple style lurks a vision as haunting as Kafka's and as playful and intelligent as Julio Cortazar's. But Shumate's voice, the authority he brings to his tales, is original and authentic. It's hard to believe High Water Mark is a first book."-Peter Johnson

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822958589
• ISBN 13: 9780822958581
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 80