DEAR DEATH, poetry by Thomas Zemsky
Publication Date: June 1, 2024
Paperback, 74 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-71-4
“[P]oetry has given me a lot,” says Thomas Zemsky, “turned me inside out, / for what— / an invitation to participate / in extraction of mystery / from the body of language.” One example of such mystery is the title poem of his new collection: a party invitation to Death, “the most popular / kid in town”. That’s the sort of startling perspective readers have come to expect from Zemsky, whose unique vision and meticulous craftsmanship appear throughout his many decades and volumes of metaphorical poetry and incandescent language. “I can earn a living, / but I’m buried in poetry” he admits, and what a blessing that this is so, for he and other poets serve to fill with words “the silence which tells us life is short.” But even if short, he assures us there is no reason for despair, for in the end (of that title poem) he says of Death, “lights finally turned off… / you’re the hand / extending past us all / with the invitation in it, / that begins, “Dear Dreams….” It is our privilege to live in the rich, wondrous landscape of Zemsky’s dreams.
Praise for Thomas Zemsky
The voice of most poets is derivative. Tom Zemsky speaks with a voice, a way of looking at the world, that is uniquely his own. His worlds have visiting hours down whose halls we are invited to visit and marvel.
—Richard Taylor, Kentucky State Poet Laureate 1999-2001, author of Snow Falling on Water: Selected and New Poems
Enter the metaphysical dreamscape where Thomas Zemsky’s ethereal and corporeal realms intertwine. From personified abstractions to secularly sacred totems, Zemsky's poems manifest kaleidoscopic inner visions rooted in the sensory world. While challenging at times, his poems ultimately reveal an embrace of life’s ambiguities and beauty found in nature’s seemingly random patterns and cycles. In Dear Death, the eponymous specter stalks the pages as both seducer and terror, beckoning the reader down strange, yet hauntingly familiar paths. The riffs of memory merge with existential mystery—sometimes uncomfortably. Each time, Zemsky coaxes the reader into varying sets of his house of horrors, to peek behind the curtain, see the wires. For those who revel in poetry's power to illuminate the unseen, this writer's distinctive voice summons the cosmological imagination.
—Sara Cahill Marron, author of Call Me Spes & Reasons for the Long Tu’m
About the Author
Thomas Zemsky was born in Hamilton, Ohio in 1947, and attended the University of Cincinnati following which he received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. From 1976 he made his home in Lexington, Kentucky where he worked for many years for the International Book Project. Following retirement his favorite pastimes included listening to jazz on LP records, Latin American and modern literature, and movies according to the auteur theory. And always poetry, which he believed, first and foremost, is metaphor. He was the author of eight full-length poetry collections, and his poetry also appeared in the Cincinnati Review and Sewanee Review among others. He died in 2024, leaving behind a legacy of unique poetry.
Publication Date: June 1, 2024
Paperback, 74 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-71-4
“[P]oetry has given me a lot,” says Thomas Zemsky, “turned me inside out, / for what— / an invitation to participate / in extraction of mystery / from the body of language.” One example of such mystery is the title poem of his new collection: a party invitation to Death, “the most popular / kid in town”. That’s the sort of startling perspective readers have come to expect from Zemsky, whose unique vision and meticulous craftsmanship appear throughout his many decades and volumes of metaphorical poetry and incandescent language. “I can earn a living, / but I’m buried in poetry” he admits, and what a blessing that this is so, for he and other poets serve to fill with words “the silence which tells us life is short.” But even if short, he assures us there is no reason for despair, for in the end (of that title poem) he says of Death, “lights finally turned off… / you’re the hand / extending past us all / with the invitation in it, / that begins, “Dear Dreams….” It is our privilege to live in the rich, wondrous landscape of Zemsky’s dreams.
Praise for Thomas Zemsky
The voice of most poets is derivative. Tom Zemsky speaks with a voice, a way of looking at the world, that is uniquely his own. His worlds have visiting hours down whose halls we are invited to visit and marvel.
—Richard Taylor, Kentucky State Poet Laureate 1999-2001, author of Snow Falling on Water: Selected and New Poems
Enter the metaphysical dreamscape where Thomas Zemsky’s ethereal and corporeal realms intertwine. From personified abstractions to secularly sacred totems, Zemsky's poems manifest kaleidoscopic inner visions rooted in the sensory world. While challenging at times, his poems ultimately reveal an embrace of life’s ambiguities and beauty found in nature’s seemingly random patterns and cycles. In Dear Death, the eponymous specter stalks the pages as both seducer and terror, beckoning the reader down strange, yet hauntingly familiar paths. The riffs of memory merge with existential mystery—sometimes uncomfortably. Each time, Zemsky coaxes the reader into varying sets of his house of horrors, to peek behind the curtain, see the wires. For those who revel in poetry's power to illuminate the unseen, this writer's distinctive voice summons the cosmological imagination.
—Sara Cahill Marron, author of Call Me Spes & Reasons for the Long Tu’m
About the Author
Thomas Zemsky was born in Hamilton, Ohio in 1947, and attended the University of Cincinnati following which he received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. From 1976 he made his home in Lexington, Kentucky where he worked for many years for the International Book Project. Following retirement his favorite pastimes included listening to jazz on LP records, Latin American and modern literature, and movies according to the auteur theory. And always poetry, which he believed, first and foremost, is metaphor. He was the author of eight full-length poetry collections, and his poetry also appeared in the Cincinnati Review and Sewanee Review among others. He died in 2024, leaving behind a legacy of unique poetry.
Publication Date: June 1, 2024
Paperback, 74 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-71-4
“[P]oetry has given me a lot,” says Thomas Zemsky, “turned me inside out, / for what— / an invitation to participate / in extraction of mystery / from the body of language.” One example of such mystery is the title poem of his new collection: a party invitation to Death, “the most popular / kid in town”. That’s the sort of startling perspective readers have come to expect from Zemsky, whose unique vision and meticulous craftsmanship appear throughout his many decades and volumes of metaphorical poetry and incandescent language. “I can earn a living, / but I’m buried in poetry” he admits, and what a blessing that this is so, for he and other poets serve to fill with words “the silence which tells us life is short.” But even if short, he assures us there is no reason for despair, for in the end (of that title poem) he says of Death, “lights finally turned off… / you’re the hand / extending past us all / with the invitation in it, / that begins, “Dear Dreams….” It is our privilege to live in the rich, wondrous landscape of Zemsky’s dreams.
Praise for Thomas Zemsky
The voice of most poets is derivative. Tom Zemsky speaks with a voice, a way of looking at the world, that is uniquely his own. His worlds have visiting hours down whose halls we are invited to visit and marvel.
—Richard Taylor, Kentucky State Poet Laureate 1999-2001, author of Snow Falling on Water: Selected and New Poems
Enter the metaphysical dreamscape where Thomas Zemsky’s ethereal and corporeal realms intertwine. From personified abstractions to secularly sacred totems, Zemsky's poems manifest kaleidoscopic inner visions rooted in the sensory world. While challenging at times, his poems ultimately reveal an embrace of life’s ambiguities and beauty found in nature’s seemingly random patterns and cycles. In Dear Death, the eponymous specter stalks the pages as both seducer and terror, beckoning the reader down strange, yet hauntingly familiar paths. The riffs of memory merge with existential mystery—sometimes uncomfortably. Each time, Zemsky coaxes the reader into varying sets of his house of horrors, to peek behind the curtain, see the wires. For those who revel in poetry's power to illuminate the unseen, this writer's distinctive voice summons the cosmological imagination.
—Sara Cahill Marron, author of Call Me Spes & Reasons for the Long Tu’m
About the Author
Thomas Zemsky was born in Hamilton, Ohio in 1947, and attended the University of Cincinnati following which he received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. From 1976 he made his home in Lexington, Kentucky where he worked for many years for the International Book Project. Following retirement his favorite pastimes included listening to jazz on LP records, Latin American and modern literature, and movies according to the auteur theory. And always poetry, which he believed, first and foremost, is metaphor. He was the author of eight full-length poetry collections, and his poetry also appeared in the Cincinnati Review and Sewanee Review among others. He died in 2024, leaving behind a legacy of unique poetry.