Unfurl, Kite, and Veer
Poems by Bill Yake
“Bill…delves deeply into matters of nature, language, and the imagination. He captures in precise and pitch-perfect language the magic and mystery of the world he encounters. And his poems, like nets dipped in hidden currents, reveal the astonishing shapes of his discoveries.” - Tim McNulty. Olympic Peninsula poet, naturalist, and author.
Unfurl,
Kite, and Veer
is Bill Yake’s second full-length book of poetry. In it, he starts close to
home – his is perched between the remnant prairie-land of the Puget Trough and
the shrouded Olympic Mountains, then circles out to lands distant as Papua New
Guinea and times distant as the Neolithic Lascaux. As these circles of inquiry
widen – the personal, linguistic, philosophical, and musical discoveries
startle and intrigue.
About the Poet:
Yake received Alligator Juniper’s national poetry prize in 2003, Fine Madness’ inaugural James Snydal prize in 2004, and has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes. His poems appear internationally in anthologies, environmental publications and literary magazines. He gives talks, and teaches classes and workshops on the interplay of poetry and wild nature.
Yake was born in
He lives along Green Creek Ravine just north of Olympia with his wife Jeannette Barreca.
Handful of Poems from
Unfurl, Kite, and Veer” – Text
or
Listen Here: Tree as Verb or For Real
To inquire or order copies, contact Greg or Bill below:
Publisher –
Radiolarian Press 4032 Green Cove St. NW
92673 John Day River Road Olympia Washington
Astoria, Oregon 97103 98502-3520
(503) 338-5502 (360) 866-0925
vermilion.g@gmail.com yake@comcast.net
UNFURL, KITE, AND VEER
by Bill Yake
2010 / $15.00 / 111
pages / ISBN: 978-1-887853-31-6
Reviews by:
Howard
McCord - Poet, essayist, and novelist;
longtime Director of the Creative Writing Program at Bowling Green State
University
Chris Dahl – Poet and Editor. Olympia Poetry Network News and Letters.
Barbara
McMichael – Book
reviewer: ‘The Bookmonger’
Observations
and Comments
“As fractals erupt from a point and the molecules of crystals fall into their specific order, Yake’s poems hit and glow with their necessity...Whether he is driving across central Washington, walking a trail in the coastal forests, reading Fenollosa, or listening to a tale in the New Guinea Highlands, [he] is tuned to the situation, absorbing all the fine detail, and linking co-ordinates in his memory. He lets the language mesh and move in his mind, and when he shows the words to you, you are there too, and seeing, hearing, knowing.
- Howard McCord .
Poet, essayist, and novelist;
longtime Director of the Creative Writing Program at Bowling Green State
University.
“Meditation and laughter, learning offered up by a generous spirit,
science made to sing – these poems feel like a true gift inviting us to live
and love between the stars and the mites.”
- Derek Sheffield. Poet and Professor of English.
“Bill Yake’s new collection presents his signature immersions in green and mountainous places washed with copious rain, rinsed through his limpid and elegant language. But it also takes new directions, veering from San Blas to far Darfur, via Bucoda and New Guinea. These are poems of love and concern that leave the reader more laved than shriven.”
- Robert Michael Pyle.
Lepidopterist and Author – most recently of Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year.
“Yake reminds me of Frederico Garcia Lorca’s flamenco dancer who has learned
all the tricks that reward the audience but has them so firmly ingrained that
now she can just dance. She has embodied
her art form. The poetic attributes which Yake uses are not studied or trotted
out to impress, but have become intrinsic attributes… Read Yake for
well-wrought discourses on nature, read him for craft, or for his thrilling
music. Any way you read these poems, they live up to expectations.
-
Chris Dahl. Poet and Editor. Olympia Poetry Network: News and Letters
