¿Cómo Hacer Preguntas? or How To Make Questions: 69 Instructional Poems in English
Author: Daniel Hales
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
ISBN: 9781642510218 (pbk.)
Physical description: 6X9; 118 p.
"Throughout this collection, Hales demonstrates an irrepressible wit, a musician’s ear, and a command of language that propels us past expectations to the very threshold of wonder."
William Waltz, editor of Conduit & author of Zoo Music
"...if you know any of Hales' previous work--and if you don't, I'm telling you now--nothing will be ordinary here. Torches will be lit, envelopes pushed, locks picked, tickets for the guided tour procured, and you'll find yourself, at the end of the poem, someplace you didn't expect to be. Hales is smart and agile with words, and funny in ways both outright and sly."
Trish Crapo, The Montague Reporter
¿Cómo Hacer Preguntas? or How To Make Questions: 69 Instructional Poems in English explores the spaces from which questions arise—the memories, musings, and metaphysics we use to seek out meaning. Riffing on the literal translation of the Spanish phrase "hacer pregunatas," these sixty-nine (or are there?) poems focus on the making of questions, rather than the answering of them. They interrogate everything from the mundane ("How To Pass The Time" "How To Write A Cover Letter"), to the sublime ("How To Transform Base Matter Into Gold" "How To Find God"), to the surreal ("How To Enter The Fifth Dimension" "How To Keep A Secret You Don’t Know"). This collection is sure to disappoint anyone wanting answers or guidance. But for anyone willing to be involved in the creation, the making, of life's important questions, this is the book for you.
Daniel Hales is the author of the hybrid novel, Run Story (Shape&Nature Press), and three poetry chapbooks: Shake My Ashes (Beard of Bees), Blind Drive (White Knuckle), and Tempo Maps (Ixnay), which comes with the companion CD Miner Street Symphony. His poetry, flash fiction, and hybrid writing have appeared in Verse Daily, Conduit, Booth, Quarter After Eight, and many other journals. He rocks out with The Frost Heaves and Hales, The Ambiguities, and Umbral. Umbral’s second album, F#requency 14, is forthcoming from Spork Press. He lives on a minor street in western Massachusetts, but is happiest in his kayak.