{"id":1834,"date":"2015-04-20T17:28:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T22:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fisherkingpress.com\/n\/?p=1834"},"modified":"2023-07-18T11:55:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T16:55:08","slug":"walk-up-music","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/fisherkingpress.com\/n\/product\/walk-up-music","title":{"rendered":"Walk-Up Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walk-Up Music<\/strong><\/em>
\nby Paul Watsky<\/p>\n

Watsky does the work of 10 poets in this excellent, slim collection. An avid baseball fan, Watsky writes gorgeously of his passion for America\u2019s pastime. To borrow a term from the sport: he\u2019s a utility player. Watsky handles multiple positions with equal dexterity and skill. In fact, there\u2019s not much he can\u2019t do. Verse about Jungian archetypes? He\u2019s got it: \u201cYes!! shouts Shadow, straight to hell! \/ Be nice, admonishes Persona. \/ Partially disrobed, Anima at the mirror peekaboos her hair \/ first across one breast then the other.\u201d (Watsky is a trained clinical psychologist.) Verse about the Japanese poet Santoka? That\u2019s here too: \u201cSake \/ his favorite koan got him \/ into trouble and then got \/ him out before the bent \/ nail of his personality \/ was pounded \/ flat.\u201d How about a poem, out by out, of San Francisco Giant Matt Cain\u2019s perfect game? \u201cJune 13, 2012, a Wednesday night against \/ the Astros, we\u2019re down for one of Matt\u2019s trade- \/ mark gems, especially Houston being nearly \/ impotent on the road\u2014not that we\u2019re entitled \/ to point fingers.\u201d And it\u2019s all good. Though he can ably write in a variety of forms, Watsky\u2019s favorite weapon is a sort of prose poem divided cunningly into sharp, un-rhyming couplets. One particularly effective example is \u201cSquaw Valley Pan Shot\u201d: \u201cwhite pine that nips \/ the heels of retreating \/ glaciers a mere ten \/ millennia ago this summer. God \/ knows, my timing \/ can be rotten but I haven\u2019t bought any \/ ski areas lately.\u201d In this form, the line breaks do the work; \u201cGod\u201d is left out on a limb, separated from the knowing he will eventually do. Thus does an approachable meditation on a winter landscape become subtle, incisive theology. As if Watsky didn\u2019t already have enough on his plate. Refreshing poetry that has a little something for everybody. \u2014Kirkus Review<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an edgy discernment in these poems, built on rage, impatience, and a deep generosity towards brokenness. \u201cBroken\u201d is where a boy\u2019s sentience began, and the means by which powerful poetry has evolved from the man. Walk-up music is a snippet of song that identifies a batter as he approaches the box. In this collection baseball becomes a trope for a form of life in which failing two-thirds of your at-bats is a great performance. As so often in the Majors, in Watsky\u2019s poems we encounter cycles of regression, aggression, redemption, and renewal, knit together by an unshakeable faith in the (human) team.\u00a0From his self-creation tale\u2014\u201cYou Musta Loved It as a Kid\u201d\u2014to the poem that hinges the book\u2014\u201cThe Absurd: An Invocation\u201d\u2014this poet throws heat: unhittable riffs of lyric vernacular that strike you out watching. And make you want more. So many poems in Walk-Up Music stop me in my tracks, as if I\u2019d just come upon fresh chalk marks in the shape of a man at an accident scene. But the man walked away: scathed, extraordinary, a poet. \u2014Dawn McGuire, M.Div., M.D., author of The Aphasia Cafe<\/em><\/p>\n

Paul Watsky writes with vigor and wit. Carrying the dust of experience on their boots, his poems ring, all the more, with conviction.\u00a0\u2014Elizabeth Chapman, author of Light Thickens<\/em><\/p>\n

A native of New York City, Paul Watsky moved to California during the late 1960’s, where, after teaching for five years in the English Department of San Francisco State University, he trained as a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst. Paul’s first book of poetry, Telling the Difference<\/em> was published by il piccolo editions in 2010. His haiku, longer poems, and translations have appeared widely in periodicals and anthologies, including Modern Haiku<\/em>, A New Resonance: Emerging Voices<\/em> in English Language Haiku<\/em>, Rattle<\/em>, Interim<\/em>, Smartish<\/em> Pace<\/em>, Asheville Poetry Review<\/em>, and The Carolina Quarterly<\/em>. He is cotranslator of Santoka<\/em> (Tokyo, PIE Books, 2006), and poetry editor of Jung Journal:Culture and Psyche.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nTitle: Walk-Up Music<\/strong><\/em>
\nAuthor: Paul Watsky
\nPaperback: 80 pages
\nCondition: New
\nEdition: First
\nPublisher: il piccolo editions (April 21, 2015)
\nLanguage: English
\nISBN-10: 1771690267
\nISBN-13: 978-1771690263<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Also available as an eBook<\/strong><\/a>
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