I’m happy to announce the arrival of The Mad Angler Poems, the latest book of verse by Michael Delp produced here at Deep Wood Press. Twenty four poems accompanied by 5 hand colored wood engravings by Chad Pastotnik and an introduction by Jack Driscoll.
Ever since last falls release of Mike’s poem The Mad Angler’s Manifesto which I produced as a large broadside I have been working on this updated and complete body of poems that embodies the habitat of trout as sacred places and the defilement, which is man, of the balance of nature. While the theme may be angling, trout specific and a little angry these poems transcend the niche and are just as much about how we interact with the natural world and the compromises and justifications we make to do it. Most often this is also done with coyote charm and devilish delight – excerpted from The Mad Angler Speaks Truth to Power:
I say that water is better than money,
something wet and smooth to be taken in and coveted.
I say that long ago we spoke to water and it spoke back.
Water is a form of being saved, lying down,
something wise in our cells seeking gradients,
places to run and places to rest.
I claim that once, in a dream, I walked on water.
Storms came.
I entered the clouds and when I came back down,
I spit the truth.
Michael Delp is a writer of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction whose works have appeared in numerous national publications. He is the author of the following five books from Wayne State University Press – Over the Graves of Horses (1989), Under the Influence of Water (1992), The Coast of Nowhere (1997), The Last Good Water (2003), and As If We Were Prey (2010) in addition to six chapbooks of poetry and being the co-editor of the Made In Michigan book series from Wayne State University Press. He taught creative writing at the Interlochen Arts Academy, has twice been the winner of the Passages North/NEH Poetry Competition, and has won a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award.
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The regular edition is quarter-bound with a brown Harmatan Moroccan goat with a cotton/linen Asahi book cloth. Gold title on spine with a varnished panel on the cover cloth overprinted with the brown drake fly wood engraving and Hahnemuhle Bugra in mocha colored flyleaves back up the book blocks which are hand sewn on straps. The book is composed in 11 and 14pt Janson with Garamond in display sizes and printed in 2 colors on Magnani Revere Book cotton 120gsm paper. 8 7/8 x 6 7/8 x 1/2 inches, 33 pages.
Edition of 71 books, the first 5 are reserved for the deluxe edition and one special copy for the author. Signed, numbered and available for purchase on the Deep Wood Press website for $350.00.
from The Prayer of The Mad Angler:
“I pray that the water in the heart of Jesus might wash away the sins of fools who erect dams, channel rivers, build levies
and create false cataracts in the lobbies of hotels.
I pray for eddies, backwaters, the slow places where current cannot find its way and I pray for shallow riffles where gravel churns up new words constantly,
the river a book spoken in all kinds of weather.”
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