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Fresh
FRESH is a collection of poetry created over a scant few months in late 2010. It moves in many different directions but manages to keep a consistent voice. It has an urgency, and haphazardness to it that celebrates growth, change, and looking forward while still not forgetting what has gone before. It proves that time spent in college can be good for more than binge drinking and sleeping ‘til noon; learning can actually take place as well.
41 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 12, 2011
90 people want to read
About the author
Dennis Sharpe
23 books149 followersBorn and raised on the edge of the American Midwest and the South, Dennis Sharpe has been a writer as long as he can remember. His mother has told many people about the fantasy and science fiction stories he'd write on scraps of paper, and staple together as his 'books', before he'd attended his first day of formal education.
He has spent many late nights at diners and dives, drinking coffee with a tattered notebook to put a voice to his feelings of himself and the world around him, and other worlds that can exist only in fiction. The voices in his head don't ever stop talking to him, and so sooner or later he has to get out onto a page all that they've filled him up with.
Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, Frank Miller, William Shakespeare, Chrissie Pappas, Charles Bukowski, Stephen King, Douglas Adams, Issac Asimov, and countless classic literary influences, Dennis continues with the ability to write what at a glance might seem absurd, but quickly begins to resonate with our own thoughts and emotions. He writes people we know, love we've known and lost (and found again), and places we've been in our lives and in our heads. Even his fictional characters and worlds carry enough of the grey areas we experience in day-to-day life, to let us find the truth in his words, no matter how fantastic.
These days he can be found still writing at all odd hours, drinking coffee with friends, or spending time with his children (the true joys of his life - when they have the time and inclination to visit), in Western Kentucky.
He has spent many late nights at diners and dives, drinking coffee with a tattered notebook to put a voice to his feelings of himself and the world around him, and other worlds that can exist only in fiction. The voices in his head don't ever stop talking to him, and so sooner or later he has to get out onto a page all that they've filled him up with.
Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, Frank Miller, William Shakespeare, Chrissie Pappas, Charles Bukowski, Stephen King, Douglas Adams, Issac Asimov, and countless classic literary influences, Dennis continues with the ability to write what at a glance might seem absurd, but quickly begins to resonate with our own thoughts and emotions. He writes people we know, love we've known and lost (and found again), and places we've been in our lives and in our heads. Even his fictional characters and worlds carry enough of the grey areas we experience in day-to-day life, to let us find the truth in his words, no matter how fantastic.
These days he can be found still writing at all odd hours, drinking coffee with friends, or spending time with his children (the true joys of his life - when they have the time and inclination to visit), in Western Kentucky.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 3, 2013
Fresh by Dennis Sharpe
In school we had poetry as part of our bilingual language classes. I hated it. Then one day a poem was put in front of me that in one sentence changed my perception. I was amazed. I was enthralled and I had a choice to make... Do I change my feeling regarding poetry. I hit university with a bang and English lit. Enter the ode of the Grecian Urn. That was that. I hated poetry. So short stories had a wee bit more merit. Not much. Then I read how much Stephen King loved it and now I am developing a taste for it.
So is this book a book of poetry? Yes and no.
Is it a book of shorts no and yes. Hat is it. It is like all such works a book for the voyeur. It gives insight into the demons that stands beside your bed when you need to go to sleep. Yes it is a voyeur 's dream. But what you will find is your own face in the mirror. It is this that I am now falling in love with. Not the image - the fact that somebody else can put into words emotions I hardly even acknowledge let alone explore. Thus this book has a piece called Self evaluation which is the one part of this book I could most closely identify with. I had a good chuckle at Letter To The Cute Blonde With The Ponytail, In The Tie-Dyed Shirt. The Wreck Of It All is a deeply disturbing piece. Kitchen Table is a very true reflection of reality.
So after it all, here is the amazing part. This book has no clear niche. It has no clear genre classification. It is an exploration and I implore you to take the journey. Guaranteed you'll find you!
WaAr
In school we had poetry as part of our bilingual language classes. I hated it. Then one day a poem was put in front of me that in one sentence changed my perception. I was amazed. I was enthralled and I had a choice to make... Do I change my feeling regarding poetry. I hit university with a bang and English lit. Enter the ode of the Grecian Urn. That was that. I hated poetry. So short stories had a wee bit more merit. Not much. Then I read how much Stephen King loved it and now I am developing a taste for it.
So is this book a book of poetry? Yes and no.
Is it a book of shorts no and yes. Hat is it. It is like all such works a book for the voyeur. It gives insight into the demons that stands beside your bed when you need to go to sleep. Yes it is a voyeur 's dream. But what you will find is your own face in the mirror. It is this that I am now falling in love with. Not the image - the fact that somebody else can put into words emotions I hardly even acknowledge let alone explore. Thus this book has a piece called Self evaluation which is the one part of this book I could most closely identify with. I had a good chuckle at Letter To The Cute Blonde With The Ponytail, In The Tie-Dyed Shirt. The Wreck Of It All is a deeply disturbing piece. Kitchen Table is a very true reflection of reality.
So after it all, here is the amazing part. This book has no clear niche. It has no clear genre classification. It is an exploration and I implore you to take the journey. Guaranteed you'll find you!
WaAr
July 5, 2013
"Fresh" by Dennis Sharpe is not your usual collection of poems but a more unique and wonderfully special brand of it. I know from other work by the same author and from the cover that many of these poems were written in diners and coffee places and I love the observations and imagination that the author lets run free in some of them. 'Letter to the cute blonde...' is one of the pieces that really hit a note with me, the imagination playing a part in what we think to believe about a stranger and how we read their behaviour.
As fellow writer I identify with 'I Write' (because of the demons they exorcise and the sanity they allow) and my favourite line in the book comes from 'Imagine' (that someone knew you the way that only you do).
Sharpe is letting us in a little into his world with these poems, or at least so it feels. Some of them rhyme - at least in parts, others don't. They don't tend to follow a metric rhythm but they have a distinct voice and one that engages and captivates you.
They topics range from an early childhood experience to that of a twelve years old onto parenthood.
What I found in these pieces is a thoughtful and deeply sensitive voice or soul, sometimes unsure of himself, romantic and clever, someone who refreshed my memory of feelings and sensations stuck and buried under my daily routines and numbness, a break that I thoroughly enjoyed.
As fellow writer I identify with 'I Write' (because of the demons they exorcise and the sanity they allow) and my favourite line in the book comes from 'Imagine' (that someone knew you the way that only you do).
Sharpe is letting us in a little into his world with these poems, or at least so it feels. Some of them rhyme - at least in parts, others don't. They don't tend to follow a metric rhythm but they have a distinct voice and one that engages and captivates you.
They topics range from an early childhood experience to that of a twelve years old onto parenthood.
What I found in these pieces is a thoughtful and deeply sensitive voice or soul, sometimes unsure of himself, romantic and clever, someone who refreshed my memory of feelings and sensations stuck and buried under my daily routines and numbness, a break that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews