{"title":"Alan Michael Parker","description":"Alan Michael Parker is the author of eight collections of poetry, including three from BOA Editions: \u003cem\u003eThe Vandals\u003c\/em\u003e (1999), \u003cem\u003eLove Song with Motor Vehicles\u003c\/em\u003e (2003) and \u003cem\u003eElephants \u0026amp; Butterflies\u003c\/em\u003e (2008). The Douglas C. Houchens Professor of English at Davidson College, Parker also teaches at the University of Tampa Low-Residency MFA Program. For more information about Alan Michael Parker, visit \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/alanmichaelparker.com\/\"\u003eAlanmichaelparker.com\u003c\/a\u003e.","products":[{"product_id":"elephants-and-butterflies","title":"Elephants and Butterflies","description":"\u003cp\u003eBoth wild and calm, boisterous and quiet, the poems in \u003cem\u003eElephants \u0026amp; Butterflies\u003c\/em\u003e employ Alan Michael Parker's trademark surprise, song, and startling metaphor while allowing the ideas to simmer just below the surface of the lyric. These poems accomplish the difficult task of being accessible while still pursuing complex philosophical and personal knowledge. Elephants \u0026amp; Butterflies includes, among other poems, a series of seven “free verse sonnets,” entitled “A Peal of Sonnets,” each named for a day of the week. As a series, the poems act as a “peal”: like the bells rung in cathedrals, in the “ringing of the changes,” the seven poems interrelate, their shared musical sonorities dynamic. Elsewhere in Elephants \u0026amp; Butterflies, Alan Michael Parker tests formal and free verse conventions, utilizing prose poem, elegy, ode, and rhyme. Combining the familiarity of formal elements with Alan Michael Parker's unique voice and vision, Elephants \u0026amp; Butterflies will surprise and gratify readers with each turn. \"The straightforward poems of Parker's fifth collection reach for opposing poles, combining the sublime and the everyday, the lumbering elephant and the etheral butterfly...anchoring his poems with poignant ironies and vivid images...always, Parker writes with great sincerity.\"--Publishers Weekly \"Overall…Elephants and Butterflies is carefully made and very accessible.  It can withstand multiple readings, and makes a compelling addition to Parker’s body of work.\"–New Madrid: A Journal of Contemporary Literature \"Parker does his work with a light touch and an inquisitive spirit; he sees and questions the odd angles and details that can make a common thought or experince matter in a new way.\" --Pleiades\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat Was He Saying and to Whom\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003eWhat was he saying and to whom?\u003cbr\u003eWith a silver thermos he left the building;\u003cbr\u003eHe paused in the courtyard and turned. \u003cbr\u003eWhat was he saying and to whom? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe building at dawn not yet a building \u003cbr\u003ePaused the way all buildings do. \u003cbr\u003eWhat was he saying and to whom? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTime doesn't stop; time doesn't wait;\u003cbr\u003eTime has never moved. \u003cbr\u003eWhat was he saying and to whom? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf the dog had been sleeping \u003cbr\u003eShe would not have awakened, \u003cbr\u003eSo small was the moment to lose. \u003cbr\u003eWhat was he saying and to whom?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat was he saying and to whom? \u003cbr\u003eThe courtyard at dawn was the same \u003cbr\u003eAs the sky, the sky swept clean by the moon. \u003cbr\u003eWhat was he saying and to whom? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGood morning, good-bye, I love you, I'll try.\u003cbr\u003eWhat was he saying and to whom?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd 2008\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAvailable editions:\u003cbr\u003e--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\u003cbr\u003ePrice: $16.00\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":8418363525,"sku":"9781934414057","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/ELEPHANTS_AND_BUTTERFLIES.jpg?v=1527683216"},{"product_id":"love-song-with-motor-vehicles","title":"Love Song with Motor Vehicles","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eLove Song with Motor Vehicles\u003c\/em\u003e, Alan Michael Parker marshals a penetrating wit and sharp irony that mirrors that of Charles Simic and John Berryman. Parker's robust imagination explores the music in places poetry doesn't usually travel -- \"Driving Past My Exit,\" \"The Screened Porch,\" \"Salmon Seen from Above,\" \"On the Red-Eye.\" His poems find their epiphanies early on, and, most strikingly, do not close at their endings but, rather, open. The book includes a series titled \"The Penates.\" These poems take as their subjects the household gods Aeneas brought with him from Troy to the founding of Rome. But the poems have a twist: the various gods -- of steel wool, draperies, brooms -- have been updated, dragged into our culture and time. The result is a post-modern riff upon present-day spirituality in relation to mythology. Parker's poem \"The Cat,\" published in \u003cem\u003eLove Song with Motor Vehicles\u003c\/em\u003e, won the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. \"Love Song with Motor Vehicles is full of, among other things, gods. But what surprising gods they are, with their strange questions, sad visions, and circumscribed domains that never stay circumscribed. Like all of Parker's brilliant books, this one is serious fun, made of grace and intelligent good spirit.\" --Andrew Hudgins\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eSigned copies available in limited supply\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBurn \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat I remember is not what happened,\u003cbr\u003enot the pain from the burn but later,\u003cbr\u003ethe baths five times a day.\u003cbr\u003eTroy burned too, I would say from the tub\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhere I read. And the temple.\u003cbr\u003eMy cousin came and sat with me.\u003cbr\u003eWho knew she was a girl?\u003cbr\u003eOf course, this was before my parents\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewere people, when they were just parents.\u003cbr\u003eBefore Kant arrived. Keats.\u003cbr\u003eSometimes childhood seems like\u003cbr\u003ea path at night, the flashlight beam\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ebouncing all over the trees. \u003cbr\u003eWhy must the past be a metaphor?\u003cbr\u003eHow redundant, when every word\u003cbr\u003eis already something else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were soft cookies.\u003cbr\u003eWhat terror I felt\u003cbr\u003eI saved in a specimen jar\u003cbr\u003efor later, for you, for now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd 2003\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAvailable editions: \u003cbr\u003e-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- \u003cbr\u003ePaperback ISBN: 1-929918-35-6\u003cbr\u003ePrice: $13.95\u003cbr\u003ePublishing Date: April 2003\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":8418651461,"sku":"1929918356","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback (Signed)","offer_id":12467777306705,"sku":"","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/LOVE_SONG_WITH_MOTOR.jpg?v=1527683293"},{"product_id":"the-vandals","title":"The Vandals","description":"\u003cp\u003e\r\n\tThe vandals stomp \"inoutinoutintoutinout\" of these poems, emerging–as if on cue–to toss monkey wrenches nto the machinery of life. The result is occasionally disturbing and often hilarious, a mirror held up to our culture of excess. \"Thirty years ago when Dylan told us 'the pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handle,' who could know they'd be reconstellated here, with all their sweet weirdness and fierce wisdom, in Alan Michael Parker's remarkable and brilliant new collection of poems. When these vandals amd this poet sing, I make myself stop to listen.\" –David St. John\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cstrong\u003eVandals, Horses\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tThe vandals are dreaming, wolves are dreaming, \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tThe horses are staked to their deaths. \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tIn the poem of the vandals dreaming \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tA word bites through a lip, \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tDrawing blood. (The poem is in ruins.)\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tThe vandals dream that their arms unseen,\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tDream themselves buried in the belly \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tOf the birthing mare, as a foal is \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tTorn to life. (The poem is banal\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tAs the barn is bloody.) \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tAnd you and I, and you and I, we steal\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tEach other's blankets, wrap ourselve\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\ts In darkness, wind, in anything \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tThe night will let us, to feel safe.\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tDo you feel safe? (Soft,\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tThe vandals sleep.) Because a word\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tIs a dream of its meaning, you and I \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tMust dream the vandals dreaming:\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tSoft, the horses nicker in the barn. \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t(Soft, our poem begins as vandals dream.)\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t© BOA Editions, Ltd 1999\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tAvailable editions: \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\t-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tPaperback ISBN: 1-880238-74-8\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tPrice: $14.00 \u003cbr\u003e\r\n\tPublishing Date: May 1999\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":8419234885,"sku":"1880238748","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/THE_VANDALS.jpg?v=1527683616"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/collections\/freeradical300sm-small.jpeg?v=1449014557","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/collections\/alan-michael-parker.oembed","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}