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John Gorman

Publications
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Back cover

Contents


The World and the Sound of Words

Resumé

My Grandfather’s House and the Sea

Cerebral Boy

Cement

The Homeboy in Spite of Himself

Found Money

A Change of Season - 1954?

Cut Glass

Indian Creek

An Abundance of Pumpkins

Scooped Dirt

Imagining the West

Red Pontiac Convertible

The Extra-Terrestrials




Red Pontiac Convertible

JOHN GORMAN



At the heart of the basket of snares lie a few hidden joys.  And that is what John Gorman describes in this enthralling book:  the joys that come from finding the answers to very human questions. Why do we believe it all over again, he asks?  We believe because he tells us we can, because there is such delight to be found in experience. What an enriching read! ~Alan Birkelbach, 2005 Texas State Poet Laureate

What first comes to my mind when I think of John Gorman as a poet is the consistent excellence of his poetic craftsmanship. His skills are extraordinary, in diction, originality of image, and musical resonance. ~Larry D. Thomas, Member, Texas Institute of Letters, 2008 Texas State Poet Laureate

John Gorman’s Red Pontiac Convertible brings the reader back sublimely through childhood days, those many faceted emotional episodes of passage wafting up, as in his radiant poem, “Cement”:  “You lie on it/and all the heat of lives/ you’ve lived so far carries your body/back to just before baths/just before your father’s two-fingered whistle/just before sleep.” Poems of remembrances, so essential to who he was, who he became, and in many ways, who we are.  Gorman has opened a portal, a kind of rabbit hole for us in the making of this fine collection. We only have to open the pages and fall in. ~Dave Parsons, 2011 Texas State Poet Laureate

In this impressive collection, John Gorman steps into the Whitmanesque tradition of singing a Song of Self.  The reader will revel in the multi-nuanced simultaneous portrayal of the journey out of eager youthfulness and of the reality of approaching death.  Bravo to John Gorman for a brilliant book! ~Sarah Cortez, author of How to Undress A Cop