\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Skoog\u0026rsquo;s first full-length collection captures and presents the truth of the truth: our under-analyzed, overlooked, often fragile existences on earth.\"\u0026mdash;Dave Jarecki\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Skoog\u0026rsquo;s use of language is disorientating, vivid and surprising, all the things I love about great poetry.\"\u0026mdash;Nathan Moore\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Ed Skoog purposefully blindfolds us, spins us around and dares us to find a target. He wants us to be unbalanced in our interaction with the work; he wants our experience to be unsettling, for the writing to 'arrive like a hostage, an ear, a finger in the mail' (from 'Party at the Dump').\"\u0026mdash;Carolee Sherwood\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cI\u003eThe Stranger \u003c/I\u003ewrites, \"Ed Skoog's poetry is so ambitious it takes my breath away.. he knows how to braid pop culture into small personal melancholies and into large generosities.\"\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eX. J. Kennedy writes, \"This is the damnedest book. I love it like crazy. Skoog is a dazzling new talent who not only promises, but achieves.\"\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe phrase \u0026ldquo;Mister Skylight\u0026rdquo; is an emergency signal to alert a ship\u0026rsquo;s crew, but not its passengers, of an emergency. This debut collection is alert to disasters\u0026mdash;the flooding of New Orleans and the wildfires of California\u0026mdash;and also to the hope of rescue. Interior dramas of the self are played out in a clash of poetic traditions, exuberant imagery, and wild metaphor.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEd Skoog, who worked for years in the basement of a museum in New Orleans, developed personal connections to objects and paintings. \u0026ldquo;Working on an exhibition about the building trades was important to this book,\u0026rdquo; he writes. \u0026ldquo;Spending weeks listening to the oral histories of plasterers, steeplejacks, and carpenters connected me to my own family\u0026rsquo;s stories.\u0026rdquo; Marked by uncommonly intense and considered use of language, Skoog demonstrates a rich attention to form and allusive narrative as he attends to the details of contemporary politics, culture, place, and relationships.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cI\u003e. . . Not to be the one who left is to live in an alarm.\u003c/I\u003e\u003cBR\u003e\u003cI\u003eThe unstraightened bed.\u003c/I\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cI\u003eBut don\u0026rsquo;t I always bring bright souvenirs from our travels,\u003c/I\u003e\u003cBR\u003e\u003cI\u003ea feather, a coin, a bee? Astonishing in my palm.\u003c/I\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cI\u003eMinutes past your touch, what our bodies were\u003c/I\u003e\u003cBR\u003e\u003cI\u003eis disappearing like a ship caught in polar ice.\u003c/I\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cB\u003eEd Skoog\u003c/B\u003e was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1971. He earned degrees from Kansas State University and the University of Montana. His poems have been published in many magazines, including \u003cI\u003ePoetry\u003c/I\u003e, \u003cI\u003eAmerican Poetry Review\u003c/I\u003e, and \u003cI\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c/I\u003e. He lives in Seattle.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e
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