Imagine
the Dawn: The Civil War Sonnets, Poems by Ryan G. Van Cleave
Personal
and American history juxtapose in this intimate collection of narrative
and epistolary poems by Ryan G. Van Cleave. Stepping into the words and
voices of family members, Van Cleave brings the reader to the Civil War
not as history but as felt experience, depicted in haunting sonnets that
take the form of letters from the front.
Sample
Poems by Ryan G. Van Cleave
Praise for Ryan G. Van Cleave’s
Previous Work
“Ryan G. Van Cleave is a born storyteller. smart, funny, energetic,
and compassionate. true sensitivity to human beings in all their madness
and magnificence.” —Martin Espada
Ryan G. Van Cleave lives in upstate South Carolina and teaches creative
writing and literature at Clemson University. He has taught creative
writing and literature at the Florida State University, the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, as well as
at prisons, community centers, and urban at-risk youth centers. He is
the author or co-author of ten books. He is also the author of five
poetry chapbooks, which won the 2001 Dream Horse Press Contest, the 2002
Miriam Morris Chapbook Award, the 2002 Word Journal Chapbook Contest,
the 2002 St. Andrews College Press Contest, and the 2002 Big City Lit
Chapbook Contest, respectively. His award-winning poems, fiction, and
nonfiction appear in such journals as
The Antioch Review, The Boston Review, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review,
Ploughshares, Southern Humanities Review, and TriQuarterly. Ryan’s
writing has also appeared in such books as
Mooring Against the Tide: Writing Fiction and Poetry (Prentice
Hall, 2000), Never Before: Poems About
First Experiences (Four Way Books, 2005) and In
a Fine Frenzy: Poetry Inspired by Shakespeare (University of Iowa
Press, 2005). He has four dogs, and is married to an elementary schoolteacher
named Victoria. Their first child, Valerie, was born in April 2004
and keeps them all quite busy.
ISBN: 1932339922, 80 pages, $17.00
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