Bellowing in the Common

from the book jacket...
Bellowing in the Common is Karl Petersen's first book. This collection "bellows" on behalf of the unheard things and people. Unheard and unseen, because they are too ordinary and common for human perception. His poetry shows how the mundane -- whether it be a boat rocking at the dock or a garden squash -- often rings with a voice louder and more startling than the extraordinary, if only we have ears to hear. Karl Petersen hears a bellowing in the common and, with a true poet's vocation, awakens us with new ears to the same old tunes.
Bellowing in the Common is Karl Petersen's first book. This collection "bellows" on behalf of the unheard things and people. Unheard and unseen, because they are too ordinary and common for human perception. His poetry shows how the mundane -- whether it be a boat rocking at the dock or a garden squash -- often rings with a voice louder and more startling than the extraordinary, if only we have ears to hear. Karl Petersen hears a bellowing in the common and, with a true poet's vocation, awakens us with new ears to the same old tunes.
Whaling
You play the waves of archipelago pathways in arches black on white, Killer they call you, I call you Worship, rising at first light to release sighs of vaporous praise, pent up ecstasy sprayed sky-bound from the deep; your pliant fin genuflects a glint of reverence, and a wake whispers through the dawn guiding the dull and disquieted to a far off Light; big Worship plunging again for fresher treasure and erupting nose first to the sun in one great lunge of praise. (from Bellowing in the Common) |