What do you think?
Rate this book
The Skin of Meaning
The Skin of Meaning is award-winning poet Keith Flynn’s sixth and most wide-ranging collection, seeking to find the tangible analogs and visceral meanings hidden behind the daily bombardment of digital information and hoping to restore the mystery in our involvement with language. From the etymologies of pop culture, history, astronomy, and rock and roll, these poems fan out into a bold multiplicity of voices and techniques. Flynn’s work illustrates the meaning that is also created through tense collisions and is populated with figures in resistance to the status quo, a gathering as varied as Caravaggio, Nina Simone, Gaudí, Villon, Wonder Woman, and Manolete. The final section examines America’s fascination with violence and death, revealing that “a human being in love with mystery is never finished.” This collection constantly challenges our assumptions about the world we think we see and is teeming with evidence of another invisible world bristling like an underground river beneath our feet.
184 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 14, 2020
6 people want to read
About the author
Keith Flynn
17 books4 followersAs a widely traveled poet and performer, Flynn has always used different voices to accomplish his aims. Serving as lyricist and lead singer from 1986 to 1998, Flynn’s poems were blasted to full effect by the double-barreled sonic accompaniment of The Crystal Zoo, which produced three albums: Swimming Through Lake Eerie (1992), Pouch (1996) and Nervous Splendor (2003), an innovative compilation of music and spoken word. Flynn is currently on hiatus with his most recent group, 3-man combo, The Holy Men, whose first album, LIVE at Diana Wortham Theatre, was released in 2011.
Flynn is also the author of five collections of poetry: The Talking Drum (1991), The Book of Monsters (1994), The Lost Sea (2000), The Golden Ratio (2007), and Colony Collapse Disorder (2013). His first collection of essays, The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing, was published by Writer’s Digest Books in 2007.
His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, journals, and anthologies in the United States and Europe, including The American Literary Review, Ecotone, Cave Wall, The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, The Carolina Quarterly, The Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, The Cuirt Journal (Ireland), Earth and Soul: The Kostroma Anthology (Russia), The 20th Century Anthology of NC Poets, Poetry Wales, Takahe (New Zealand), Margie, Shenandoah, Quarterly Review (Singapore), Rattle, and The Southern Poetry Review.
He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award, was awarded the Paumanok Poetry Prize in 1996, and the 2013 North Carolina Literary Fellowship. Flynn has given thousands of performances from his work across North America and abroad. In 2005 and 2006, Flynn served as the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for North Carolina, working to promote the cultural importance of poetry in his home state. He is also the founder and editor of The Asheville Poetry Review, a literary journal established in 1994 that has published over 1,500 writers from 22 countries.
Flynn is also the author of five collections of poetry: The Talking Drum (1991), The Book of Monsters (1994), The Lost Sea (2000), The Golden Ratio (2007), and Colony Collapse Disorder (2013). His first collection of essays, The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz and Memory: How To Make Your Poetry Swing, was published by Writer’s Digest Books in 2007.
His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, journals, and anthologies in the United States and Europe, including The American Literary Review, Ecotone, Cave Wall, The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, The Carolina Quarterly, The Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, The Cuirt Journal (Ireland), Earth and Soul: The Kostroma Anthology (Russia), The 20th Century Anthology of NC Poets, Poetry Wales, Takahe (New Zealand), Margie, Shenandoah, Quarterly Review (Singapore), Rattle, and The Southern Poetry Review.
He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award, was awarded the Paumanok Poetry Prize in 1996, and the 2013 North Carolina Literary Fellowship. Flynn has given thousands of performances from his work across North America and abroad. In 2005 and 2006, Flynn served as the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for North Carolina, working to promote the cultural importance of poetry in his home state. He is also the founder and editor of The Asheville Poetry Review, a literary journal established in 1994 that has published over 1,500 writers from 22 countries.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 16, 2020
Many of the lines felt tired. Didn't resonate with me but might have more impact on a different reader.
Displaying 1 of 1 review