Degenerates: A Collection of Poetry

By Michael Ashby

Degenerates is a small collection of poems written by South Florida author and poet Michael Garrett Ashby II. This brief collection, put together in commemoration of the tradition chapbook format, is a pocketbook of assorted poems ranging from the inane and silly to the dark and twisted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312879461

Michael Ashby

Michael Ashby é membro do Departamento de Engenharia da Universidade de Cambridge, onde ocupa o posto de Royal Society Research Professor. Além disso, é editor da “Progress in Materials Science”.

Book preview

Degenerates: A Collection of Poetry

Degenerates: a collection of poetry

by Michael Garrett Ashby II

For David,

your art has always served as an inspiration.

For Elizabeth,

Even though no one refers to you as Elizabeth.

Contents

Degenerates: a collection of poetry

Preface

Sun Hats for Adults

Silver Screens

The Rich Family Séance

Headlines

Father

Smooth Jazz Singers

Were You a Rescue?

Shores

Rural

Lily

A Wolf in Flannel

In the Original Language

Fat Jesus

Hymn Cleric

Wasted Eliot

Oh Solomon

Our Fathers Tell Each Other Stories

Steel Rail Sidewalks

Hopping Trains to the Philosopher’s College

A Love Letter

Gold Plated Bed Sheets

Born to a Witch

Dry Season

Women, Rings, and Little Fury Things

Inside the Garden

How to build a Pantheon

Feed Your Young

Slow Start

Preface

I’m not one for pleading, so instead I will settle with urging. I urge all of you to read poems aloud. Not just the ones in this book, but all the poems you come across. You see, I didn’t fall in love with poetry the first time I read it in a class, or the first time I read it in my room, I fell in love with poetry when it was screamed at me through cigarette smoke in a local bar. There’s something every author puts into their poetry and it isn’t meant to be heard alone. Its meant to be yelled until someone hears it and manages to take something away from it. Its meant to be funny like Allen Ginsberg’s America, its meant to be scary like Sylvia Plath’s Elm, its meant to be a lot of things.

This small book is