Kung Fu of the Dark Father

Kung Fu of the Dark Father presents not only the poet's father, the author's own enigmas, but also a veritable lineage of men confronting what Lorca describes as the duende in art and life-mythology's insistence that one must enter the underworld before there is any hope of bearing light. Here we meet a destruction derby hero, the Rolling Stones, Freud's cocaine habit, Meriwether Lewis' less than heroic return from the great West; St. Augustine, Copernicus, Hemingway's third son-each facing a darkness that poetry helps bear. There are also wild gurus, wandering monks-a terrestrial crew despite celestial aspirations-the human in each of us, with clay feet under a tainted moon.__________________- Praise for Dane Cervine's Poetry -…has a fine sense both of language and the interconnectedness of human lives that for me is at the heart of poetry. -Adrienne Rich, author of Later Poems: Selected & New …poems that matter…the beauty and pain of life become indistinguishable. Deliciously full of joy, insight, and awe. -Ellen Bass, author of Like a Beggar/ …it is really the passion and precision…that earns my full attention. -Tony Hoagland, author of Application for Release from the Dream: Poems …clear struck bells. -Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty