For nearly fifteen years, writer and musician Ken Waldman has been touring as Alaska’s Fiddling Poet, combining old-time Appalachian-style string-band music with original poetry and Alaskan storytelling. The book-and-CD set D is for Dog Team is his first children’s book, a collection of poems, songs, and illustrations that is sure to delight kids of all ages. A companion volume, D is for Denali, aimed at older children and teens, comes with the book; the resulting package will be a fireside treasure for the whole family.
The Writing Party, Ken Waldman's fourteenth book, is part writing manual (chapters begin with a writing prompt), part memoir (Ken's life as writer and teacher), part poetry collection (poems about writers and writing). It was written in response to long-time requests by attendees of Ken's popular creative writing workshops.
Poetry. Late 2016, immediately after the U.S. Presidential election, Ken Waldman wrote TRUMP SONNETS, VOLUME 1, subtitled THE FIRST 50 DAYS. Veteran poet and critic Grace Cavalieri, wrote: "Good thing we have the First Amendment or this Dude would be an ex-pat. Funny and smart though." The collection quickly went through an initial printing as Waldman wrote a sequel, subtitled 33 COMMENTARIES, 33 DREAMS. Then Waldman wrote TRUMP SONNETS, VOLUME 3, subtitled THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, with poems from the perspective of 72 countries. Now, Waldman has written the fourth in the series, subtitled THE SHRUNKEN SOUL EDITION. This new collection begins at midnight, and proceeds to give Donald Trump's soul a voice on the hour for every hour in a single day, and then beyond. Interspersed are poems in the voices of those in Trump's immediate orbit, from three of his children, to his wife, to Mitch McConnell and Michael Pence, to Kellyanne Conway and George Conway. Like the prior books, the poems range from the bitter to the bitterly funny. In conjunction with this newest book, Waldman has developed a stage show: Trump Sonnets or: How I've Taken on Donald Trump (and Won). This latest book is proof that Ken Waldman, and his publisher, Ridgeway Press, are winning.
Full of poems that stand alone as consummate accomplishments, Conditions and Cures nevertheless coheres as a book about life-and-death verities, strategies for survival or triumph or at least coping gracefully. The comic is one of those strategies, and Ken Waldman is often at his most hilarious when he's addressing subjects another poet might murder with solemnity. In addition, he frequently engages with demanding forms like pantoums, villanelles, sestinas and sonnets, submitting to their guidance but never losing his independence. The secret of such a trick is his ear: a professional musician, Waldman swears final allegiance to the body of our language, its sonorities and rhythms, to its possibilities as song-a co-strategy with the comic." -Philip Dacey
The poet has fully discarded affected, tawdry and wearisome expressions in these poems. The climax of the poet's triumph in this poetry collection is reached in moments of such intensity that the reader is completely carried away.
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