Description
- Kind: Perfectbound
- Pages: 92
- Language: English
- Date Published: September, 2021
- ISBN: 978-1-953252-36-4
“Assassins grow in purity:” one of the many intriguing premises you’ll discover in Shield Wall, Dennis Daly’s deep excursion into the rondel. Here are sixty outings in this form, ranging from the ironic or devotional to the loving, militant, vernal, even gothic or surreal. Faithful to the rondel’s tight demands, Daly nevertheless creates a universe flexible in meter, line endings, and rhyme. His classical learning and devotion to the heritages of poetry infuse but never dominate this collection. Time spent inside Shield Wall will take you from beginning points like “A riptide wraps around my heart,” leading you down unexpected paths. —David P. Miller
Excerpt
Battle Axe
The battle axe breaks through the wood
Near the handheld iron center,
The splintering, a bisector
Of stinking fear and brotherhood.
Still there is nothing understood
By the bludgeon and bloody blur,
The battle axe breaks through the wood.
A new shield, another falsehood,
Protects the heart of cloying muser
And his scribe, a blackguard bruiser,
Who writes in rhyme, as well he should.
The battle axe breaks through the wood.
Author
Dennis Daly lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Joanne. They have four adult children. Daly graduated from Boston College and has an M.A. in English Literature from Northeastern University. He has published eight books of poetry and poetic translations. Among other jobs Daly has worked as a dockworker, a Union Leader of a 9000 member industrial local, a city department head, and a community corrections director. He has travelled widely in central Asia.
