New poetry title Kafka's Shadow by Judith Skillman

CUMBERLAND, Maine - Feb. 6, 2017 - PRLog -- Kafka's Shadow takes the reader through Franz Kafka's life (1883 – 1924) from childhood on to adulthood, as he came of age under his authoritarian father, Hermann, who desired that Franz become entrepreneurial and insensitive—in short, a replica of himself. Themes include Kafka's desire to escape from the "milieu," and to experience life apart from a suffocating domesticity. These poems explore Kafka's provocative style and relentless drive to write, as well as his illness,  fragility and, ultimately, his inability to marry for fear of losing his raison d'etre—which was, of course, writing.

Praise for Kafka's Shadow

I have been drawn to Judith Skillman's work for three decades, ever since her first book, Worship of the Visible Spectrum.  In her latest volume, she inhabits the mind of Franz Kafka, as well as some of those who loomed large in his life: family members, would-be sweethearts, his editors. We thus see the world in the outré, off-kilter way that Kafka seems to have—as if the lenses of his eyes worked differently than most people's, letting in a light that few can focus. In Kafka's Shadows, he sees edges that others don't, edges that cut him off from taking part in "normal" life—pleasing his father, marrying, performing work that others consider productive. Skillman's use of internal rhyme in many of these poems exemplifies how Kafka's world, while being initially recognizable as our own, resonates on another frequency, bringing music sharp and unfamiliar to our ears. This book gives us a deeper knowledge of Kafka as a person and artist, of his times and difficulties in finding his place. Though he loved peonies, we see the thistles that grew around him.

—Michael Spence, Umbilical, winner of The New Criterion Poetry Prize

Reading Skillman's poems, I felt more acutely my own desire to be fully alive, the pressing realities of beauty and loss.

         —John Amen, Editor of The Pedestal Magazine

. . . readers will encounter the intelligence and honesty of the real thing."

         —Brendan Galvin

. . . Skillman's ability to accommodate multiple meanings in even the most seemingly straightforward of sentences is like being pushed by a doppelganger who insists we jump beyond obvious interpretations.

         —Christianne Balk, The Holding Hours, UW Poetry Series

"Skillman bends and breaks standard syntax and meaning as she employs impressive vocabulary, narrative, and imagery for her own purposes, mining the hidden regions of dreams, myth, culture, and memory. She mixes a sliver of pain, a kernel of tenderness, a twist of satire, perversity, and bitterness, creating from it all a potent sauce of raw truth."

—Ann Wehrman, Reviewer, The Pedestal Magazine

DEERBROOK  EDITIONS IS PLEASED  TO  ANNOUNCE

Kafka's Shadow
poems by Judith Skillman
Paperback
6 x 9 in. 78 pages
price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-9975051-4-6
publication date: February first 2017

available now at deerbrookeditions.com

distributed by spdbooks.org

http://www.deerbrookeditions.com