Ace - Softcover

Carr, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0915380706 ISBN 13: 9780915380701

Publisher: The Word Works, 2009

Synopsis

Poetry. The story of a drug dealer looking for his grandson, the poems in ACE follow four family members--Ace, Carol, Miss Princess, and Little Ace--through estrangement and tragedy. In each of the book's four sections, one family member tells his or her version of the story, starting with Ace's quest and concluding with the extraordinary journey of Little Ace. Denise Duhamel writes: "ACE is a gorgeously sad novel-in-verse. The poet carefully rescues and polishes discarded lives, gives voice and dignity to the disastrously troubled. ACE is emotionally complex, honest, and deftly crafted."

About this title

About the Author

RICHARD CARR's poetry and reviews have appeared in Poetry East, Exquisite Corpse, New Letters, Painted Bride Quarterly and many other journals. His chapbooks are Butterfly and Nothingness (a hypertext published by Mudlark) and Letters from North Prospect (winner of the Frank Cat Press Poetry Chapbook Award). His full-length poetry collections are Mister Martini (University of North Texas Press), Street Portraits (Backwaters Press), Honey (Gival Press), Ace (Word Works Books), One Sleeve (Evening Street Press), Imperfect Prayers (Steel Toe Books), and Dead Wendy (FutureCycle Press). His honors include the Washington Prize for Ace, the Gival Press Poetry Award for Honey, and the Vassar Miller Prize for Mister Martini.

Besides "serious" employment as a systems analyst, web designer, tavern manager, and college teacher, Richard has held an assortment of jobs in restaurants, big box and small town hardware stores, book and newspaper print shops, and on farms, as well as house painting, cabinet making, ice rink grooming, and, one summer, filling sunken graves in a cemetery. As a teenager, he wanted to be a concert pianist. His cat's name is "Fur" Elise, and his goldfish are called Aria and Goldberg. In college, he majored in philosophy. At one time, he could recite a hundred digits of pi. He once hitchhiked to California. His car is a Jaguar XJ8. He's been in three motorcycle crashes. None fatal.

Review

Richard Carr's Ace is a gorgeously sad novel-in-verse. In a series of intimate 14-line poems, Carr follows the tragic love story of Ace and Carol, a love story born of junkyards. This poet carefully rescues and polishes discarded lives, gives voice and dignity to the disastrously troubled. Ace is emotionally complex, honest, and deftly crafted. --Denise Duhamel, author of Mille et un sentiments

Ace offers us four vividly wrought characters bound together by the ineffable yet invincible ties of family. While all the lives here are 'a blur of failure' in one sense or another, each is nonetheless haunted by 'the fog and debris of lingering possibility'--possibility of love, of forgiveness, of redemption--even after death. In this beautifully rendered sequence, the gifted Richard Carr proves himself not only a superb poet but a first-class storyteller, keeping us turning the pages with admiration and gratitude. --Christopher Conlon, author of Mary Falls: Requiem for Mrs. Surratt

About this edition

• Publisher: The Word Works
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0915380706
• ISBN 13: 9780915380701
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 76