|
Before We Lost Our Ways
Copyright © 1996
by Mark Sanders
Hurãkan/College of the Mainland
How to Buy
|
Mark Sanders' poems embrace the diverse worlds from
which he has grown — the Great Plains and the
geographies of family, history, and loss. Yet, there exists
here a stubbornness to persist against ongoing
extinctions. These poems do not exist in the vacuum of
province; rather, they occur upon the common
earth of the common person who has lived and felt too much
what it means to have lived. — from the jacket
I have envied Mark Sanders the ability to say exactly what
needs to be said then stop. That is what we all
want ultimately to be able to do. He makes poetry seem easy.
The poems in this volume are not easy
poems: they are the blood and guts of a poet who knows art
is important to this life, even though most
people "are extensions of their chairs" ("The Oasis Bar"). — Jim
Barnes, Chariton Review
Mark Sanders' poems "build on hard rock, on irreducible
and often brutal fact, but they aren't afraid to
take to the air." — Don Welch, Reynolds Poetry
Chair, University of Nebraska — Kearney
These well-crafted poems reflect a voice both fresh and direct,
a voice that takes the reader into the
poet's life openly and intimately and without apology.
Mark Sanders holds nothing back; his poems
transect an impressive gamut of attitudes, themes, and
emotions. — William Kloefkorn, Nebraska State Poet
Sanders is destined to become one of the best writers to
come out of the Great Plains. His poems are
both moving and intelligent. — Dave Etter, author of Alliance,
Illinois
Mark Sanders' latest collection of poetry, Before We Lost Our Ways,
is sad and personal, filled with loss, doubt, failed dreams, and
what Sanders calls "ongoing extinctions." Its literal setting is
the plains
world of the flatlander (this is in turn the title of one of the poems
in the collection)
in which "Yearbooks and trophies pass on to attics" and "Ghosts of
elm trees ... spook the
emerald lawns with shade." Yet, Before We Lost Our Ways
is also the work of a poet who never loses
sight of the ordinary or quotidian, which is where he'd prefer to live
— if he could. ... To be sure, this is a strong collection of poems.
... — Samuel J Umland, Midwest Quarterly
|
|
A Dissimulation of Birds
Copyright © 2002
by Mark Sanders
Crane Editions
How to Buy
|
Mark Sanders' first collection of short stories explores Nebraska's Plains and its people
in terms that are as uncompromising as the territory itself: brutal, cold, relentless,
and painfully beautiful. Sanders chooses not to romanticize, as so often Plains writers
do. Clearly, the author loves the land and its inhabitants, but to soften them or to
transform their likenesses into something more suitable is not Sanders' mode of
acceptance. Mean is good if mean is true. Indeed, a hard land builds hard truth:
in love and hate, in murder or self-defeat, in acceptance and in betrayal. Sanders
hones sharp the edge of his fiction and does not apologize if such truth cuts deep
our sensibilities. — from the publishere
|
Here in the Big Empty
Copyright © 2006
by Mark Sanders
Backwaters Press
How to Buy
|
Here in the Big Empty is the second full-length collection of poetry by
Mark Sanders. Sanders, a native of Nebraska, has published numerous poems,
essays, and short stories in such journals as Prairie Schooner, Glimmer
Train, River Teeth, Poetry East, The South Dakota Review, The Midwest
Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review, Poetry Wales, The North Dakota Quarterly,
among others. His first collection of poetry, Before We Lost Our Ways,
appeared in 1996; a collection of short stories, A Dissimulation of Birds,
appeared in 2002. He currently teaches English courses at Lewis-Clark
State College in Idaho. Individuals wishing to order Here in the Big Empty
may do so by sending your name and address to the publisher
with payment. Price per copy is $16.00, postage-paid.
Send check or money order payable to: The Backwaters Press, c/o Greg
Kosmicki, publisher, 3502 North 52nd St, Omaha, NE 68104-3506. — from the publisher
|
On Common Ground: William Kloefkorn,
Ted Kooser, Greg Kuzma, and Don Welch
Copyright © 1983
by Mark Sanders & JV Brummels
Sandhills P
How to Buy
|
Besides living in Nebraska, about the only other attribute the poets share
is that of dedication to their craft. In the process of expressing this
dedication, to paraphrase from Greg Kuzma's interview, none of them has
dimmed his responsiveness to the world, repressed the vital energies of
things, or
grown immune to his surroundings. The essays in the book vary widely in
perceptivity and
illumination — a few are excellent — but even the less helpful
ones
offer new perspectives on the poetry discussed. On the other hand, the
interviews are invaluable. They reveal the poets'
attitudes towards what they create; appreciation of the poems is enhanced
by this knowledge. The condition of poetry
today is described and evaluated in the interviews. Among the issues
disussed are politics and bureacracy in the world
of poetry, granstmanship ("proetry"), the rewards and hazards of
publishing,
poets' responsibilities and difficulties in the workaday world, the
propriety of appointing a State
Poet, and the usefulness of poetry. — Steve Norman,
Nebraska Library Assocation Quarterly, Summer 1984
|
|
The Plains Sense of Things 2:
Eight Poets from Outstate Nebraska
Copyright © 1997
by Mark Sanders
Sandhills P, 1997
How to Buy
|
The poets included in this collection range from life-long residents, the late Larry Holland
and JV Brummels, an out-of-state transplant, Shirley Buettner, and Nebraskans in exile, Mark
Sanders and Kathleen West [also in-state Nebraskans Neil Harrison, Barbara Schmitz, and Don
Welch]. ... Most of the poets in Plains Sense sprang from rural and small urban
settings. Many were educated in the larger cities before returning to what they love:
the land, the space, the freedom. — Bruce R Nelson, Nebraska Territory
The poems ... seem to open naturally to the succeeding ones and evoke the
"spare beauty" of Nebraska, curse or bless the weather, and above all, show the ability
of men and women of the plains to "endure" and "lean into" daily life and
adversity without complaint. — Jo Taylor, Nebraska Territory
|
|
The Plains Sense of Things 3:
A Tribute to Larry Holland
Copyright © 1999
by Mark Sanders
Sandhills P, 1999
How to Buy
|
When Larry Holland died in a car crash in March 1999, his death rocked Nebraska's literary
community. Holland, a widely respected poet and essayist, ... helped establish the Elkhorn
Review and the Nebraska Poets and Writers Festival, the forerunner of the Nebraska
Literature Festival. It is fitting that the third installment of Sandhills Press's Plains
Sense series should be a tribute to Holland. ... Holland comes across as modest and earthy
in his writings and what others have written of him. To have so many of one's peers gathered
in praise and celebration would have made Larry blush. — Bruce R Nelson, Nebraska
Territory
|
Bibliography
