INTERROGATIONS: Poems Posing Questions

In his unique new poetry collection, Interrogations, Ken Lauter delivers 112 poems, each of which contains a question? or several. He believes questions are the ?engines of poetry? and that interrogating your mind, life history, and environment (both natural and personal) is an essential part of being human. Yet the book is not solemn or formal. Alternating between abstract and concrete, serious and whimsical, mystical and mundane, Lauter?s inquiries are not part of any premeditated plan or philosophy. They all arose independently, spontaneously, and in a wide variety of circumstances? and are, in essence, fuel for the fire that every poet longs to ignite. In the words of a popular song, he simply asks: What?s going on?

In his unique new poetry collection, Interrogations, Ken Lauter delivers 112 poems, each of which contains a question- or several. His poetry has been compared to Robert Lowell's, and distinguished poet William Meredith has said that Ken has "a splendid and various [poetic] gift." His previous books include: The Ghosts - Notes from a Field Study; Grand Canyon Days; New Mexico Notebook; Searching for Mr. Stevens; The Structure of the Body; Vermeer in Words; Time After Time - a Novel in Verse; 50 Years - Poems for My Wife; the memoir, The Ratlue Diaries- Two Poets & the Rocking-K War in Tucson AZ; and several plays, including The Dancing Apsárás, or Captain Willard's Blues, a prequel/sequel to the film Apocalypse Now. He has received a Hopwood Poetry Award, an American Academy of Poets Prize, a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship, and has taught literature and creative writing at four universities, as well as working as a mayor's aide for economic development in St. Louis, as an assistant dean at the University of Arizona, and as a grass-roots environmental activist.