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From the Ground Up
Copyright © 2000
by Roy Scheele
Lone Willow Press
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A bright spotlight on the crowded stage of contemporary poetry. — Ted Kooser
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Noticing
Copyright © 1979
by Roy Scheele
Three Sheets Press
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Scheele's overall subject and method are pastoral and
urban-pastoral...[but
he] is capable of sometimes going for his subjects to
history or art, as in his
very fine poem "Lion Lying Down," in which the subject
of a Rembrandt painting is
brought to life. — Mordecai Marcus,
"18 New Poems by Roy Scheele,"
Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star (July 29, 1979)
I liked to watch the poems unfold, like calligraphic writing.
The images are
clear — a blown paper bag, a hinge of light, ferns, crows and
cottonwoods. The poems
are not greedy for weight, but they are substantive.
The success of the book lies in
a sort of understatement, of great feeling right under the
surface of ease. The great feeling is mostly great love. — Margaret
Hasse, "Let's Hear It for Simplicity,"
A View from the Loft (June 1980)
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Pointing Out the Sky
Copyright © 1986
by Roy Scheele
Sandhills Press
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Roy Scheele's new book, which is Volume 3 in Sandhills Press' Plains
Poetry Series, is probably the best collection of poems ever published by a
Nebraska writer. More than that, it establishes Scheele as one of the most
impressive younger poets in North America today. ...
Least egocentric of poets,
Scheele strikes the universal note. Without being
written down or straining after
popularity, his poems achieve the charm of a classical simplicity and
lucidity.
They are also thoughtful and subtle, though Scheele is more a perceptual
poet than an intellectual one. His poems take the stuff of everyday life
on the Great Plains, observe it closely and relate it to something familiar
to everyone: the need for meaning, imagination, and quiet
strength. ... Pointing
Out the Sky convinces us that taken-for-grantedness is death,
and that life, the permanent quickening of the spirit, comes when we pay the
ordinary things of life the respect of loving and undistracted
observation. —
Robert Beum, Lincoln Journal-Star (September 28, 1986)
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The Sea-Ocean
Copyright © 1981
by Roy Scheele
Annex 21 #3
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There is little interest in the panoramic sweep of prairie here,
except perhaps
in the title poem. The focus is on the "thing out there,"
on a work glove in a garage
window, stanchions in a barn, a single house, two blades of
dill, a grapevine. ... In
this kind of poetry the challenge is to see the subject
clearly and focus one's vision;
the danger is that the subject suggests nothing beyond
itself. Scheele avoids this sort
of photographic realism very well, especially in
poems like "Winter Onions," "Spring
Greens," and "Six O'Clock Report." — Frederick M Link,
"Poems by Roy Scheele,"
Lincoln Sunday Journal and Star (April 5,
1981)
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The Voice We Call Human
Copyright © 1991
by Roy Scheele
Juniper Press
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Roy Scheele's latest chapbook, handset and elegantly
printed on fine paper,
contains 19 poems by a poet at the top of his form.
Other short collections came
out in 1974, 1979, and 1981, and in 1985, a large
collection, Pointing Out the Sky,
was published. His work can be found in many periodicals,
including The Sewanee
Review, Poetry Northwest, and Commonweal.
One of his finest poems, "The Lookout," a narrative of more
than 230 lines in blank verse,
appeared in the summer 1990 issue of Prairie Schooner.
This poem and Scheele's other publications suggest the caliber
and range of his accomplishments. Although
these recent poems are all short (the longest is 15 lines),
the small scale belies
their weight and richness. — Graham Duncan, "Reviews,"
Potato Eyes (Summer/Fall 1992)
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What the Critics Say
Bibliography
