READ THIS: Room Service Poems, Meditations, Outcries & Remarks by Ron Carlson
It's not often that I sit down with a book of poetry and become captivated by it. Room Service by Ron Carlson did exactly that! The poetry in this book really blew me away! The poems are really thoughtful and witty, which is right up my alley. The author actually joked about writing a poem a day for a year and publishing it in 2012. Well, he has done just that with this book! Carlson has written eight books of fiction including Room Service and has had his short stories featured in many major publications. Brimming with Carlson’s signature good humor, the pieces in this book were written over many years in many places. His poems are unified in this book and are quite an enjoyable read! This is a great book to buy for your friends that appreciate well-written poetry!
I believe that Room Service is what a book of poetry should be like. Ron Carlon is clearly a very talented writer and I could tell how deliberate he is with his words. This book is filled with a variety of styles. It keeps the reader interested and unsuspecting of what is going to happen on the next page. As the summer months are upon us, and many people are looking forward to spending days lounging at the beach with a book. This book is definitely worth a spot in your beach bag. You will not be disappointed and Room Service might even give you reason to pause. Go on: buy this. It is great!
When it comes to picking out books or collections of poems to read, I tend to consider the cover first. If the cover doesn't look appealing to me, I'll move on. With Ron Carlson's Room Service: Poems, Meditations, Outcries & Remarks, I loved the cover and couldn't wait to begin reading. I was not disappointed. I found that once I got started, I couldn't put it down. I had the entire book read in just over an hour. It's not very often a book or collection of poems comes along that I want to read more than once, and this is one that I know I will read again. I found myself laughing out loud many different times throughout. I think my favorite was "Homeschool Insider: The Fighting Pterodactyls." I can't wait to read more by Mr. Carlson now and highly recommend this book.
From "Utah Cabin Under Heaven, July 3 : "the hornet...dragging his golden quotation mark legs". Or the phrase, "the butterfly flying in hiccups". Ron Carlson threatened to write one poem per year, and it took him 30 years to get them all together for this volume, "Room Service". The guy is good. As a teacher of writing, Mr. Carlson indulges, but does not overindulge. He uses antonyms as familiar as a past dream, but in new and refreshing ways. He remembers sounds, color, sensation. As a modern day Proust, his stream of consciousness stirs the memory bank and gives a good read. As a storyteller, he lays out the facts, in a hidden but not obscure fashion. Ron Carlson's Mother was an original Tweetster. As a housewife in the Midwest, she wrote "25 words or less" for contests, and won! Genetically programmed as it were, Ron Carlson gives us his 30 year collection of poetry. Not in 25 words or less. His Mother would be proud.
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Room Service
Poems, Meditations, Outcries & Remarks by
Ron Carlson
How did one of America’s most gifted fabulists come to write a collection of poetry? For thirty years, Ron Carlson has joked about writing one poem a year, and to look for his book of them in 2012. The joke came true: Room Service: Poems, Meditations, Outcries & Remarks is a genre-bending collection of traditional verse, prose poetry, microfiction, and—why not?—a play or two, dancing easily from the lyrical to the surreal to the comical, capturing the long sweep of life’s simple necessities and small triumphs. Brimming with Carlson’s signature good humor, these pieces were written over many years in many places, and are unified, as befits a first book of poetry, by hope. Room Service reminds us why poetry is necessary, and will leave you wondering what took him so long.
Room Service
Poems by Ron Carlson
ISBN: 978-1-59709-233-3
6.5 x 9; Tradepaper
96 pages
Tentative Price: US $17.95
Scheduled Release: March 1, 2012
Biographical note:
Ron Carlson is the author of eight books of fiction, most recently The Signal. His short stories have appeared in journals such as Esquire, Harpers, The New Yorker, as well as The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Series, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, and other anthologies. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and a National Society of Arts and Letters Literature Award. His book on writing, Ron Carlson Writes a Story, is widely taught. He is director of the Graduate Program in Fiction at the University of California, Irvine.
