Camera Stellata, Poems by Dana Curtis
The absurd, the grotesque, the sublime: all have a place in the indelible scenes rendered in Camera Stellata by Dana Curtis.
“The voices and mysteries in this book make me wonder what precise language accomplishes as it changes us from readers to eternal participants. In these marvelous poems, Dana Curtis redefines what it means to bear witness to personal and spiritual transformations through the undecipherable power of poetry.”—Ray Gonzalez
“The poetry of Dana Curtis has transpired, through several beautiful volumes now, in a carnival atmosphere of outrage and reprisal. Yet here, in Camera Stellata, the carnival finds its ultimate purpose, its rest, and its secret dignity. Here is a book in which all the sad and angry clowns become seraphim at last. Surely, Curtis has seen a credible heaven.”—Donald Revell
“Dana Curtis writes with a pen dipped in noir—think Warren Zevon and his obsession with the genre as manifested in fiction; think Sylvia Plath and her obsession with the early and inky-hued films of Ingmar Bergman, especially The Seventh Seal, The Magician, and Persona. Think also of Paul Muldoon, the only poet, so far as I know, to win an award from ASCAP, and the great line he wrote for his dying friend: ‘the flesh, Warren, is merely a bruise on the spirit.’ Curtis’s body may be bruised, and also her heart, but the latter beats strong beneath the spiky, seductive intelligence—now think barbed wire—of these poems’ music, which amply displays a poet come fully into her powers and with her spirit flying free."—Diann Blakely
Dana Curtis's previous collections of poetry include The Body's Response to Famine, which won the Pavement Saw Press Transontinental Poetry Prize. She is the editor-in-chief of Elixir Press.
ISBN 978-1936370382, 80 pages, $18.00