Spare Change: Poetry

by Kevin Pilkington

This is a collection of poetry by Kevin Pilkington who authored 3 chapbooks and whose work has appeared in many periodicals.The poems are divided into 2 sections- My Father's Hands and Sailing. This is the 1997 National Poetry Book Series Award winner.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

Published January 1, 1997

About the author

Kevin Pilkington is a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College. He is the author of ten collections: Spare Change was the La Jolla Poets Press National Book Award winner; Getting By won the Ledge chapbook award; In the Eyes of a Dog received the New York Book Festival Award; The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree was a Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award finalist. His poetry has appeared in many anthologies including: Birthday Poems: A Celebration, Western Wind, and Contemporary Poetry of New England. Over the years, he has been nominated for four Pushcarts. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines including: The Harvard Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Iowa Review, Boston Review, Yankee, Hayden’s Ferry, Columbia, North American Review, etc. He has taught and lectured at numerous colleges and universities including The New School, Manhattanville College, MIT, University of Michigan, Susquehanna University, Georgia Tech. His debut novel Summer Shares was published in 2012 and a paperback edition was reissued in summer 2014. His collection Where You Want To Be: New and Selected Poems was a 2017 IPPY Award Winner. A new collection entitled Playing Poker With Tennessee Williams was recently published by Black Lawrence Press. His second novel entitled Taking On Secrets was published in September 2022.

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent poetry. Evocative, American, sexy, urban, stark, emotional, raw, polished.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read the first 20 or so pages of Kevin Pilkington's Spare Change, I thought that I was reading the same poem. But when I took a closer look at Pilkington's work, I realized that it was because the same woman (or the composite of this same woman) simply weaves in and out of much of this collection, especially with the poems at the beginning. We see the speaker addressing a "you" in "Breakfast" who sits at a counter and "pours cream in your coffee/and by mistake/stir it the color of the woman you forgot/then gulp it down/to forget her all over again." We see another speaker in the poem "In a Bar on 2nd" look at a woman to "notice the distance in her eyes" that has "the extra/mile that even another drink/could never help you reach."

However, I would be misleading any future reader by saying that this book is nothing except about a man on the "prowl" for a woman. Spare Change is about the starkness of all our lives. Written in short, terse, precise lines, Pilkington captures the loneliness and mystery of our world. His poetry reminds me of the world of Raymond Carver, where the stark details have the burden of telling it all. His best work comes in the poems that throw the unexpected at the reader, such as the speaker in "Holding a Farm in Your Hand" who leans over to "pick up the entire farm/in my hand and for a few/moments, let cows graze/ on my thumb."

In essence, Pilkington's poems remind me of Jim Daniels, with about the same amount of grit but a little more surrealism.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's evident why this book was awarded the National Poetry Book Series Award. Pilkington talks to you as if he just met you on the street; you get straightforward emotion, but with a wonderful linguistic music and twist. Read it. I have -- and have read again and again.