American poetry
David Surette
Contemporary poems


Surette
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American contemporary poems by David R. Surette
Upcoming poetry readings in the Boston area
Purchase literary works or read poetry samples online


UPCOMING READINGS AND EVENTS

Sunday, September 20, 2009, 1:30 pm

Poet David R. Surette
at
The East Bridgewater Festival of the Arts, 2009

East Bridgewater Town Hall
175 Central Street
East Bridgewater, MA 02333



 

David co-hosted POETRIBE in East Bridgewater, Mass.

www.Poetribe.org
.
 

Literary Journals and Anthologies

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Grace Cavalieri, the producer and host of public radio’s The Poet and the Poem from The Library of Congress, named Cadence of Hooves the Best Poetry Anthology of 2008 for The Montserrat Review in its list for best fall reading.

Yarroway Mountain Press is proud to announce the August 2008 publication of Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses. This anthology of literary poetry is the premier collection by Yarroway Mountain Press and contains the work of more than 170 contemporary poets with over 300 poems that focus on the relationship between humans and horses.

The list of contributors include poets Tess Gallagher, Ilya Kaminsky, Maxine Kumin, Dorianne Laux, Larry Levis, Gregory Orr, Molly Peacock, Alberto Ríos, David R. Surette, C. K. Williams, Henry Taylor, Elaine Terranova, Diane Thiel, and Daniel Tobin.

The collection celebrates the enduring presence of horses in our lives.

Contributors masterfully offer us entry into the world of the physical—heart warming as well as heartbreaking—and the metaphysical and magical realms in which horses play a significant role.

Horses show up in these selections through a wide range of written forms from litanies, elegies, odes, pantoums, sestinas, blank verse, and sonnets to free verse in both lyrical and narrative styles.

We hear the far-reaching voices of female, male, cowboy, novice, farrier, knacker, veterinarian, jockey, stable hand, parent, child, wife, husband, lover, and more—brought to us through poets who intelligently and artfully explore diverse perspectives on the venerable and long-standing relationship between horses and humans.

For ordering information go to http://www.yarrowaymountainpress.com/

French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets, (Louisiana Literature Press) - August 2007
French Connections brings together an extraordinary collection of Franco-American voices in contemporary poetry. Contributors include Michelle Boisseau, Henri Cole, John Dufresne, Colette Inez, Dorianne Laux, Bin Ramke, Chard diNord, Mark Strand, Chad Parenteau, David R. Surette, and many others. Each poet prefaces their poems with a bio about their experiences as a Franco-American and it makes for great reading.
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"The Tryout"
in Literaryspot - January, 2008
Available at The Poetry Society Cafe, London, The Poetry Library, London, The London Review Bookshop, and The Scottish Poetry Library
Plus Literaryspot.com’s Poem of the Day

"Thor" - Look! Up In The Sky!- An Anthology of Comic Book Poetry (Sacred Fools Press) - January 2007

"In the Backyard" - Salamander Spring 2007

"The Empire Grill" - Wolf Moon Press
"Betrayal" - Adagio Verse Quarterly
"Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In" - Lily

 

More News

Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In listed as Highly Recommended at the 8th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards.

Now Available
Murder on Cape Cod by Al Blanchard $19.95 Koenisha Publications (October 25, 2007)

Whisper the Past, a limited edition chapbook of David's poem "Acadie" is on sale at Grande Pre, Nova Scotia, a Canadian Park celebrating the Acadians by telling the story of their lives before and after Le Grande Derangement.

Interview and Poems http://freewebs.com/lilylitreview/2_5index.htmlfont

 
 

Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In

 


Koenisha Publications presents a new collection of David's poetry. The book contains 51 new poems. It is available in bookstores, poetry venues, readings, and online (www.amazon.com and www.koenisha.com)

>click here to order book from amazon.com

 

>click here to see a video from Poetry for The Spring Equinox

 

>click here to see a video, photo and article from from the Concord Journal

 

>click here to hear A Beer with Barbosa

 

 

>click here to see a video of David from January’s Poetry in Motion

 

>click here to see a video of David from Wake-up and Smell the Poetry

 

>click here to see a photo from the Falmouth Bulletin

 

>click here to read an article from the Malden Observer

 

>click here to read an article from the East Bridgewater Star

 

>click here to read review from the Somerville News

 

Young Gentlemen's School

 


Koenisha Publications presents a collection of David's poetry, including all the poems from his three chapbooks plus ten new ones. It is available in bookstores, poetry venues, readings, and online (www.amazon.com and www.koenisha.com).

>click here to order book from amazon.com

 

Poetry Available On-Line

 

Good Shift
Third chapbook with more poems on love, god, hockey, horses, Malden…
>click here for selected poems

 

contemporary American poems

American Poetry
David's second chapbook.
>click here for selected poems

 

Nova Scotia poems

Whisper the Past
Poems about Nova Scotia,
the search for Surettes.
>click here for selected poems

 

poems about Malden an American city
A Chapbook about growing up in Malden, Massachusetts.
>click here for selected poems


Praise for Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep in

The horse knows why it runs.

The horse remembers

arrows in its hide,

cart and carriage,

plow and harness,

mine shaft and battlefield

The first time I read these lines I penciled in the margin next to them, Steal this! I found myself doing the same thing again and again as I kept reading. There's a music and an inevitability and a crystal clarity to David Surette's work that makes me grateful.

- George Bilgere

These are fresh, incisive poems that sparkle with the salt of the everyday. Surette writes with a quick, acquisitive eye and self-effacing voice that invites his reader into the small but resonant dramas of his childhood, his adult family life and his job as a high school English teacher in eastern Massachusetts. With a remarkable lack of "irritable reaching", Surette records the vivid, quotidian narratives of his life with a universal, direct appeal.

- Chard deNiord

David Surette is a steward of humility in its many forms: from his blue-collar Acadian roots to his lowly yet noble farm animals. With charm and affability, yet neither of these at the cost of implicit depth, this collection impresses by setting out to do just the opposite: simply and un-self-consciously befriending the reader.

- Frannie Lindsay

In EASY TO KEEP, HARD TO KEEP IN, David R. Surette continues to mine a life rooted in small New England towns, and brings up gold. His subtle wit, his precision of eye and ear and language lay bare universal truths of living in this world. Through these poems his town becomes our town, our home, and it is with joy and gratitude that this reader keeps returning to them

- Kevin Goodan

Praise for Good Shift

I like his poems a good deal — they're sharp and lucid and look outward as well as inward. I can hear them as human speech and I bet he reads them well out loud. They work on the reader’s or listener's pulse, the only true test as far as I'm (and also Mr. Keats) concerned.

- Thomas Lux, poet, author of The Cradle Place (Houghton Mifflin, 2004); The Street of Clocks; New and Selected Poems, 1975-1995

Praise for Muckers, Grinders, Shapers, Hangers, Hackers, and Huns:

"I was late for work today because I picked up this book and it wouldn't let me go. First it was a baby watching a monarch mobile in sunlight, then the pony that wouldn't let the rider work out his frustrations, the smells in the car the guys always used, the house where every room had a name. Fortunately, it's a small book. I only missed one class."

- Michael Brown, poet, professor, host of The Boston Poetry Slam, author of The Falling Wallendas, Susquehanna and The Man Who Makes Amusement Rides.

"Where are the edges, dangerous and beautiful, that ask and answer?" The edges David Surette searches for can be found in Muckers, Grinders, Shapers, Hangers, Hackers, and Huns, his latest collection of poems. Surette navigates language as surely as his daughter sits "The Tryout" pony. This is poetry.

- Valerie Lawson, poet, author of Ribbon Anvil, co-host of The Boston Poetry Slam

For Malden…

This is a man after my own heart. Dave writes exactly the kind of poems I would write if I could just write shorter poems. He writes about real things in real words. He writes about the people he grew up with, and they sound exactly like the same people we all grew up with. But, somehow, out of all that feels so familiar and often so funny, he draws your eye with seeming effortlessness to the surprising and the poignant. He tells the stories we have been overlooking in our lives.

- Jack McCarthy, poet, author of Grace Notes, Breaking Down Outside a Gas Station - Live CD, and Say Good Night, Grace Notes

David has a wonderful wit and evokes the terrible and triumphant life of kids. "And me I was just another prisoner."

- Pat Schneider, poet, author, playwright, librettist, founder/director of the Amherst Writers & Artists.


Boys Life with brother John Surette

David was the chief lyricist for the popular Boston band Boys Life.

>click here for Boys Life


©Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 David R. Surette. All rights reserved.
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