Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and New Poems

By Tom Hennen and Jim Harrison

Hennen was brought to our attention by Jim Harrison, who wrote an introduction to the book

All of Hennen's poetry appeared in slender, regionally distributed chapbooks

90% of Hennen's previous work is out of print.

There will be a great sense of discovery surrounding the publication of this selected poems

Garrison Keillor is a fan of Hennen's work and his poems have appeared on "The Writer's Almanac"

Robert Bly is an enthusiastic supporter of Hennen's poetry

A volume of his selected poems is being translated and will be published in Norway in 2012

Hennen was central to the founding of the Minnesota Writer’s Publishing House. He printed the House’s material with a 1250 Multilith press stashed in his garage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Release date: May 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781619320376

Book preview

from THE HERON WITH NO BUSINESS SENSE

(1974)

Home Place

The old house went down the basement stairs

And didn’t come back up.

The people

The cows

The sheep

The pigs and the chickens

Have disappeared through a great hole

In the landscape.

Minneapolis

Blackened trees

Limbless from industrial accidents

Huddle on the outskirts of the city.

The swamp has become a supermarket overnight.

A heron with no business sense

Vanishes.

The hungry man from the woods

Feeds on loose change

Like a parking meter.

At night

The smokestacks sink into the ground.

Underground the soot changes hands.

The night shift moves slowly

Emitting a dim light from their mole eyes.

An odor of small lakes

Survives in the clothing of insects.

Wife

My wife, you believe me

When I say I am a white stone

As silent as the moon.

You follow me,

The cold air cracking your lips

As you pardon me

For the winter.

You are with me when my courage

Is as moveable as furniture.

In a dark room

Or the woods

You calm me.

You are the wild grass I lament

In late spring.

Thunderstorm Coming

Outside the granary door

The spilled oats growing

By leaps

Banging against the feed pails I’m carrying.

Under the yardlight

I see

It’s really

Frogs and crickets

Passing each other in midair

Excitedly,

Almost shining.

As though they are the shape

Stars take

Close to earth.

Opening Day

First day of fishing season

The woods are crawling

With neurotic men.

Away from shore

At four dollars an hour

Boats are rocking

Empty.

Each shadow in the lake

A fisherman

Paralyzed,

Sinking

With tail and fins

And eyelids he cannot close.

Winter Twilight

It’s winter now, and almost night,

The grass of the earth is dead.

My window sill has been put on crooked

So that I am chilled by air

Dark and cold.

Outside I can see no one,

And the last of the sunlight is being hunted down

By something

Reviews for Darkness Sticks to Everything

[unclebob53703 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The prose poems are especially fine.