It was great fun to correspond with Matisse's great grandson in order to
obtain rights to use this image on the cover of my poetry collection Femme au chapeau. Happy to say it will be available as an eBook in
September! Pre-order price for you is $2.99, until 9/26/16. You can go
here to pre-order: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/657130.
Poet Barbara Crooker did a wonderful review of the book on Smartish Pace, mentioning "exquisite figurative language throughout". She cited my "unusual and surprising subject choices", such as "the differences between men
and women, as revealed in their choice of razors and bathroom
accessories ("The Difference"), the unattainable/remote mother ("Piano
Lessons," "Apple Pie Order," "Laparoscopy," "Beauty by a Sideboard"),
the self-explanatory "Ode to My Purse," the olfactory genius of dogs
("Dog Sniffing"), the state fish of Hawai'i ("A Pot of
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a"), manual typewriters (the hilarious "Ode to a
Smith-Corona" which has to be explained by its equally funny end note)."
Best of all, this quintessential ekphrastic poet -- check out Crooker's books, especially her New and Selected -- said of my poems about paintings: "Dacus embodies the best of ekphrastic work, which doesn't merely
describe works of art, but responds to them, allows the paintings to
take her someplace else, and brings us along with her."
Labels: #poetry, book review, Femme au chapeau, poem, poetic craft, poetry, poetry about art, poetry about fathers, poetry about the ocean, poetry book, pre-order