Calamity Joe

Brendan Constantine

Publication Year: 2012

Reality has begun to show its age. Have you noticed? Joe has. Calamity Joe is the pen name of the mysterious narrator in a new kind of poetry collection. Spending his days in a lab, talking to mice & microbes, he will soon be the last living member of his family. More and more, life seems to hint at its syntax, and Joe feels that he can just make out the page he inhabits. Drastic measures are called for, but for what? Poet Brendan Constantine hasn’t crafted another novel in verse, but a secret life revealed by poetry. Open it anywhere and be rewarded with poems that stand alone; read it from the beginning and discover the deeper context that ties every image together. As with his previous collections, Constantine employs countless approaches to poetry and no single style dominates. Looking through Joe’s eyes, we understand that life has no single story, that love is not a single feeling, and that consciousness may be an act of sheer will.

Published by: Red Hen Press

Contents
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Book Details

E-ISBN-13: 9781597093217
Print-ISBN-13: 9781597091763
Print-ISBN-10: 1597091766

Page Count: 112
Publication Year: 2012

Edition: First

Calamity Joe

Title Page, Copyright, Acknowledgments, Dedication

Contents

The Cast

Part 1. Once

Prelude

Difficult Listening Time

The Legend Of Joe

The Intervention

Before The Flood

Splay

The Horse You Rode In On

The Drowned Brother

The Legend Of Joe

Joe

Section 2. The Calamities

There they are

An Animal Hospital

The sick, the injured, the slow

There they are again

Give you back

Nobody’s daddy but my own

Lily

We left the room and didn’t

This is Calamity

The words

Part 2. Twice

The Search Party

Litany

The Legend Of Joe

A Horse Named Death

In the Shrine of the Mynah Bird

Rara Avis

Joe Dreams Of The Old Man & The Sea

The Missing Girl’s Horse

Supplement–The Old Man Lets Us Have It

Compline

The Legend Of Joe

Joe Again

Section 2. The Formalities

My mother ate Queen Anne

My brother once held up

My father used to swim

You

Go gentle,

Out there the words are black

Grief

Bring the old man downstairs,

I don’t remember why

Consider the spiders

The Japanese beetle

Understand this,

Part 3. The Charm

Ship Your Horse

New Math

The Legend Of Joe

My Favorite Story Is This One

The Body

A Brief History of The Theater

Tragoedia

Flight Out of Guest Bedroom

Retreatise

The Legend Of Joe

Joe One More Time

Section 2. The Calm

A dead man doesn’t walk into a bar

The shape of my name

Swear

The boy in the next room is mine

Which brings us to God

How many doors

I’ve found an answer in the bones,

I dreamt I was your finger,

Know this:

Poem

The boy has come back,

Cover your eyes,

Dies Irae (Day of Wrath)

About the Author

Research Areas