Description
- Kind: Perfectbound
- Pages: 84
- Language: English
- Published: June, 2013
- ISBN: 978-1-933675-99-2
Praise
Grounded by generous humor, graced with charming music, Rick Mullin’s latest collection, Coelacanth, mingles the modesty of a man “in need / of better shoes” with the regal bearing of the artist-as-hero, one gifted with “a formula for magic,” the last of an untamed, “legendary breed.” In a world gone “austere” and “ashen,” in an age when “mythology has reached a sorry pass,” we are comforted by Mullin’s poems, which share with the famous living-fossil fish of the book’s title the power to inspire wonder in things long since thought to have disappeared from the earth. —ERNEST HILBERT
Excerpt
Under Glass
Mythology has reached a sorry pass
when “-ologists” start bringing out their dead.
The Coelacanth is burping under glass
expressing common bottom-feeder gas,
and look at this—a Chupacabra head.
Mythology has reached a sorry pass.
Leviathan? That looks more like a bass—
a large mouth cast in aldehydes and lead.
The Coelacanth is burping under glass
and Chupacabra’s coming off bad-ass,
a Mexican vampiro. But its dread mythology
has reached a sorry pass—
let’s call it phylum Pitbullshiticass
or just forget its legacy instead.
The Coelacanth is burping under glass
unlikely in the future to harass
our dreams. and Draculito has been bled.
Mythology has reached a sorry pass
when Coelacanth is burping under glass.
Author
Rick Mullin’s epic poem, Soutine, was published in 2012 by Dos Madres Press, Loveland, Ohio. His book-length poem, Huncke, was published in 2010 by Seven Towers, Dublin. His chapbook, Aquinas Flinched, was published in 2008 by the Modern Metrics imprint of Exot Books, New York City. Another chapbook, The Stones Jones Canzones, was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Kentucky.
