Praise for Richard Krause
The poems are arranged in nine sections loosely around a theme. The first poems are visceral and bodily. Many poems in section two concern writing and reading. The third section is about relationships. The fourth and longest section contains the most animals. Five is self-reflective. Six is portraits, setting disparate people or things alongside each other, and seven's character sketches show people changing. In eight, people or things are not as they first appear. The final poem characterizes and summarizes the whole book in a wonderment: imagine every movement of gills as an explosion. The poems, called observations, in turn observe life's often overlooked details to instill imagination. What if, they ask, we would observe as these poems do, with gills that breathe stimuli with precision and beauty, thereby releasing their heft and value? The poems offer this amazement, disgust, destruction, and passion in minute doses, just enough to inspire more.
Mari Carlson
Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
Mari Carlson
Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
About the Book
Unashamed Observations is a collection of 110 prose poems. The poems address living for nine years in Japan, traveling in the Far East, driving a taxi for five years in New York City, growing up in the Bronx, and living for seven years in an orphanage in Pennsylvania. They include poems about relationships with animals, books, and body parts, and record the depth of experiences with the men and women I have met.
About the Author
Richard Krause has had three collections of fiction published titled Studies in Insignificance (Livingston Press), The Horror of the Ordinary (Unsolicited Press), and Crawl Space & Other Stories of Limited Maneuverability (Unsolicited Press). He also has had three collections of epigrams published, Optical Biases (EyeCorner Press in Denmark), Eye Exams (Propertius Press), and Blind Insights into the Writing Process (Fomite Press). Krause lived for nine years in Japan and drove a taxi for five years in NYC. He currently lives in Kentucky where he is retired from teaching at a community college.