Sign-In
Cart
Playing Fields
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781639807536
Publisher: Kelsay Books
Published: May 14 2025
Pages: 108
Weight: 0.34
Height: 0.26 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
-Marjorie Maddox, author, Small Earthly Space
Each poem in Playing Fields summons a world that is fully present in the moment. Everyday phenomena - a bowling ball, a repurposed lawnmower, squirrels and songbirds, a plaid thermos, a damaged tree - become the poet's brothers and sisters, merit his care and concern. In Super 8, Chelius, channeling Edward Hopper, wonders of a stranger: lonely or merely alone, / who'd presume to say? Indeed, there is a vital kinship between a Chelius poem and a Hopper painting. Here, a child at play is not lonely because the game's world has come alive, drawn close. In this regard, each of Joe Chelius's poems is a playing field. As we read, magically, we enter that field with him.
-Terence Culleton, author, A Tree and Gone
Like the moves of a skillful athlete, Chelius's craft in Playing Fields feels easeful and natural - for he is a master of metaphor and resonant detail. Each scene is rendered with clarity and a sprig of tenderness that does not deny difficulties. They never judge or accuse, providing us oft-needed lessons in civility. Chelius owns an acute sense of what the characters and objects in our lives signify to us, whether it be Hank Aaron giving his young fans an obliging wave before settling into position or a dismantled swing set in the back yard. Warmed by their maker's humane sensibility, these poems help us find what we may have overlooked or never thought worthy of notice.
-Luray Gross, author, With This Body
Also in
General Poetry
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Pitavy, Francois
Alighieri, Dante
Paperback
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Sounding the Seasons Enlarged Edition: One Hundred and Ten Sonnets for the Christian Year
Guite, Malcolm
Paperback
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Lao Tzu
Paperback
A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems with a Side of Soup, Celebrating Community, Friendship, and Resilience
Jackson, Major
Hardcover