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Sprocket
Sprocket is a series of breathless prose-poems capturing poet Al Rempel’s childhood adventures spent roaming free in the idyllic setting of Arnold, BC, a small farming community tucked into the corner of Vedder Mountain, near the US border. Each poem presents a snapshot of one or two memories, sometimes involving the author’s siblings, his two “summertime only” school friends, or any number of other local characters. From climbing up the mountain “with handholds wet with moss and banana slugs” to finding the best way “to run full blast through a cornfield just before harvest,” Rempel takes his readers through an age where, as long as you were home by suppertime, you could go almost anywhere on your bike.
A kaleidoscope of images in language running loose and free yet always with intent and narrative force Rempels Sprocket hurls us into the world of boys on bicycles who only stop to ask Where does the universe end A great delight that triggers memory and returns us to the wholeness of childhoodDavid Zieroth author of first here and then far selected poems 19712024
In runon tumbles of full blast exuberance Al Rempel leads us in a gang racing through the greening superlatives of youth Throughout Sprockets crackerjack prosepoems play reigns supreme because what kind of afternoon is it if you dont build harbours in the mud with the microbes and ditch weeds and bugs The unassumingly artful piling up of imagery subtly invokes reflection upon who we were in that distant past Sprocket takes us back to when the door to the future was wide open like we could go anywherereading it feels like an infusion of youthKevin Spenst author of A Bouquet Brought Back from Space
Rempels poems wake up to a new ache in our bones waiting for the sun to light up our place in the world and transport us to lives lived outside from fields to forests train tracks to manure pits the base of mountains and streams swung across on the branch of a cedar This is a onceupon world of paper routes gocarts and gumboots peopled by those who spin their days through bike spokes or seem to be always running rolling through barbed wire fences into ditches as night closed in These poems invite us into this world until we too wonder what would happen to us and did the universe go on forever Sprocket reminds us that the fleeting ache and wonder of the everydayfloods frogs snakes scrapes and allcan be a plainsong divineLaisha Rosnau author of Little Fortress
These poems are condensed blocks of runon overlapping narratives all phrases and lines moving in and out of scenes like poetic dream memories all the while creating amazing rhythms that carry one along toward those beautiful endings that often cast an unexpected perspective on the whole poem The poems move through childhood until one day the childs glove doesnt fit anymore and the sandbox is left behindPatrick Friesen author of Reckoning
In runon tumbles of full blast exuberance Al Rempel leads us in a gang racing through the greening superlatives of youth Throughout Sprockets crackerjack prosepoems play reigns supreme because what kind of afternoon is it if you dont build harbours in the mud with the microbes and ditch weeds and bugs The unassumingly artful piling up of imagery subtly invokes reflection upon who we were in that distant past Sprocket takes us back to when the door to the future was wide open like we could go anywherereading it feels like an infusion of youthKevin Spenst author of A Bouquet Brought Back from Space
Rempels poems wake up to a new ache in our bones waiting for the sun to light up our place in the world and transport us to lives lived outside from fields to forests train tracks to manure pits the base of mountains and streams swung across on the branch of a cedar This is a onceupon world of paper routes gocarts and gumboots peopled by those who spin their days through bike spokes or seem to be always running rolling through barbed wire fences into ditches as night closed in These poems invite us into this world until we too wonder what would happen to us and did the universe go on forever Sprocket reminds us that the fleeting ache and wonder of the everydayfloods frogs snakes scrapes and allcan be a plainsong divineLaisha Rosnau author of Little Fortress
These poems are condensed blocks of runon overlapping narratives all phrases and lines moving in and out of scenes like poetic dream memories all the while creating amazing rhythms that carry one along toward those beautiful endings that often cast an unexpected perspective on the whole poem The poems move through childhood until one day the childs glove doesnt fit anymore and the sandbox is left behindPatrick Friesen author of Reckoning
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Details
Dimensions:
72 Pages
8.00in * 5.50in * .20in
.29lb
100.00gr
Published:
January 31, 2025
Publisher:
ISBN:
9781773861654
Featured In:
Language:
eng
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