Nowhere Now Here

by Charles Springer

Overview

Nowhere Now Here by Charles Springer is a collection of prose poems that read and feel whimsical on the surface, with solid and brilliant imagery, but underneath this surface readers will be moved by undercurrents of grit and pathos. It's a stand-out collection of ordinary lives and their seemingly ordinary moments made extraordinary.

"Charles Springer's Nowhere Now Here transports its readers on splendid carnival rides from the moon to the middle of nowhere and then ever so gently back home again."

- David Shumate, author of Table Scraps, Kimonos in the Closet, The Floating Bridge: Prose Poems and High Water Mark: Prose Poems

"Imagine Max Jacob's Dice Cup made love with Charles Simic's Not The End of the World made love with Amy Gerstler's Bitter Angel and then throw in some Jennifer L. Knox for fun. You are holding in your hands the offspring of this amalgamation of voices and tones and spirits. Except Charley Springer's collection of prose poems, Nowhere Now Here,is its own Technicolor vision of the world and the heart. This book is a remarkable and singular thing unto itself. These prose poems are wild, wise, funny, and finger lickin' good. You just want more. You just want to lick the sweet and sour of his trope off of your fingers so you can get all the flavor of his voice into your body and heart as deeply as possible. These poems make you want to last with them long into the nighttime because you know that Springer is the best spy, the best farmer, the best friend, the best person to dial the operator. These prose poems are the best prose poems and Nowhere Now Here is everywhere one time and always here right now, forever."

- Matthew Lippman, author of Mesmerizingly Sadly Beautiful

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780998414690
Publisher:	Radial Books, LLC
Publication date:	11/05/2021
Pages:	102
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.24(d)

About the Author

Charles Springer has degrees in anthropology and is an award-winning painter. A Pushcart Prize, Sonder Press Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net Nominee, he is widely published in print and online. His first collection of poems, Juice, was published by Regal House Publishing.

Editorial Reviews

"In Nowhere Now Here by Charley Springer an ordinary event easily turns surreal, the narrator's sentences rushing us into a dream world, where a man shoots the breeze with a porcupine, where icebergs roll into mainstreet, where you find pigs snorting in a pile of potatoes in your front yard, where dust bunnies come alive and where there's a big new world right around the corner, but you never noticed it before. Springer reports on the farout daily experiences and fantasies of a community of characters in Stubbornville, Ohio or Main Street, USA. The flash stories in Nowhere Now Here are playful and ironic, magical and surreal, and a delight to read."

- Barbara Henning

"There is a way of talking about what is real, exactly as it is, so to make it seem implausible, and this without relying on dreams or surrealism, symbols and myths. It's a very narrow path and few poets walk it, but Charley Springer is one. The book's title underscores how unlikely it is, the strangeness of our situation, this having come here from nowhere, out of nothing. In the opening poem, 'Day at the Beach, ' a truck spills beach balls into the loose nebula of redwing flocks and traffic, and the collection, as arresting as it is free and playful, expands like a miniscule cosmos from there. I loved this book; I admire this poet. His remarkable knack for the prose poem-such a sense for endings, such an ear-is the dark matter that bonds together all of our orbiting, crashing, seemingly separate worlds."

- David Keplinger

"Springer creates here an absurd world filled with engaging characters and unpredictable events. His prose poems are delightful streams of consciousness, inviting the reader to enter a surreal setting where reality is turned on its head. His poem 'About Faces' opens with 'Ted and Alice keep a closet full of faces. They hang on little hangers next to shirts and trousers.' It is a masterful poem offering an elaborate play on words. There are plenty of twists and turns, as in 'Pine Tale, ' with a hardwood floor 'remembering about its early years' and wondering what had become of its fellow timbers. Sometimes the absurdity can break your heart, as in 'Sent from Above, ' with its poignant last line 'the crow was right there behind him.' In 'Middling, ' Springer turns the adjective into a verb and a reason for being; while the dialogue in 'The Race' reminds me of a scene from Beckett's absurdist play Waiting for Godot. The poems are divided into six sections, set off with pithy ironic headings such as this: "John's sense of wonder became heightened at the 'Museum of Ordinary Things.' In Nowhere Now Here, you don't always know where you're going, but it's sure to be a fun ride."

- Gene Twaronite

WARNING TO POTENTIAL READERS: Just holding Charles Springer's book of prose poems Nowhere Now Here kicksyou to the brink of the bottom line and it won't be anything you were expecting. If you take this book home, prepare before choosing a place on your shelf or nightstand. Move all vapid material, printed or otherwise, to the shed or donate it to your local political party. Never place your electronic devices on or beside it-there have been reports of jumblings, sparks, and occasional shocks. Most importantly, if you thought the very kernel inside every childhood question should stay bound to daylight, never, ever read Nowhere Now Here just before bed. It is an unchained gate midway through your field. Open it and release the Carnival. Nothing will ever be the same.

- Rebecca Kinzie-Bastian

From the Publisher