Night Flight

by Kenneth Frost

To read Night Flight is to fall down a rabbit hole of startling means for knowing nature—and the nature of the self—through the physical and metaphysical, the rational, intuitive and mystical; to ride night like a jockey, to translate its language into new modes of knowing, to hypnotize the self with study, and to gaze into a mirror and see reflected—a collective unconscious. Kenneth Frost has whispered “into fire’s//ear” and lived to tell the tale, in spare, painterly language that reads like imagism on steroids.

53 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2010

About the author

Kenneth Frost has published poems in literary journals including Denver Quarterly, Southwest Review, and Nimrod. He grew up in New York City and Long Island. He received his B.A. from Princeton University, and taught Creative Writing and English Literature at Columbia University and The New School before moving with his wife, poet Carolyn Gelland, to Wilton, Maine, to read and write in solitude they could only dream of in New York City.

Reviews

[Carolyn Gelland · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In the slim volume of Night Flight, Kenneth Frost has composed his own little book of night music that both haunts us and lulls us as we settle into our own bodies' cradles of life and death...." http://www.swback.com/reviews/Night_F... -- Christina Cook, "A Little Night Music"

Kenneth Frost's poems in Night Flight are lyrical, sometimes surreal and always profound dreamscapes of symbolic, primal images; sometimes his images and metaphors are so rich and fructifying that he keeps several worlds spinning in the air at the same time. Winter nights in Maine, Wittgenstein in Norway, a window-washer in New York City, the moon, terrorists, assassins--his frames of reference are very wide and deep, and his meditations, while often probing tragedy and threat, are oriented toward "the shining ground."

THOREAU

Coyotes pad
on the pine needles
and bend midnight
to a breeze
while their slight smile buries
hunger
like old pharaohs
in their eyeteeth.

Are these the bright
hollows whip-poor-wills
slide into songs,
the famishing haloes
circulating
over the sleep
the minnow fans
deep in his mirror
flickering dreams
with his slow fins?

INTO THE HUMMING

My bones are brittle as glass.
Can I look into them,

into the humming tunnel,
the hollow core,

to hear my heart
and see the moon,

a maze of moons
beating, beating?

A heartbeat walks
on the moon's plague of eggs,

a hangover of drums
fits each step.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Night Flights" has a nice collection of memorable poetry. I especially like "Blizzard" where the poet writes "Snowflakes tear their rags deep into alphabets, searching for vowels to beat into wilderness" As well, the one titled "Jackson Pollock" touched me since I admire Pollack's paintings. Thank you GoodReads for the book.

[Beverly Breen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frost's poems are deceptively short, rich with allusions and symbolism for the
intellect and abounding in imagery for the intuition. The skillful segue
of images and ideas leaves a crafts person wondering, "How did he do that?"

[Charlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book as a winner on first reads. It was a nice collection of poems and I enjoyed reading them. It has been a long time since I have read a collection of poems.