Leonard Kress

Craniotomy Sestinas Leonard Kress

Read these poems, and something happens. Call it a surprise, call it the poet letting the poem loose to fly and going along on the tailwind. The poet pays homage to other artists, explores myths and great biblical themes, writes of love and grief. At times, the form becomes nearly invisible as the voice takes over. There's a rollicking cleverness that turns away from itself into the deeper / darker heart of its concerns.

Betsy Scholl, author of Changing Faces, Appalachian Winter, Rooms Overhead, and Otherwise Unseeable

From the early interweave of working-class life and intellectual and cultural erudition in poems such Letter from Bernard Malamud, Surplus Jeep, and Elmo, through a glimpse of Polish women tending the graves in Gryzantyny, all the way to the hypnotic and heart-breaking Ginsburg's Harmonium, Kress provides a feast of compressed, intelligent writing presented with highly polished craft - personal narratives full of colorful observations and surprising insights as well as touches of humor. The past is not even the past; whether it's the Cold War or the Iliad, Kress makes it provocatively modern and alive.

Oriana Ivy, author of From the New World, April Snow, How to Jump from a Moving Train, and About Living in the Candy Store

Imagine a postmodern Pindar with a liberal arts education and good command of Polish; think of an Orpheus who starts as a horny kid from the American suburbs, hits the road like Kerouac, learns a few things along the way, but still looks back-whacked! Kress has come up with some playful and surprisingly haunting sonnets that glance at the old stories but sing their own new, not too sweet songs.

Julia Kasdorf, author of Eve's Striptease, Sleeping Preacher, The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life, and The Orpheus Complex