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

5/9/08

Friday, May 9, 2008 from 9:30 am to 11:30 am

CAPE COD WRITERS’ CENTER PRESENTS

BREAKFAST WITH THE AUTHORS

Hyannis Golf Club
1860 Iyanough Road
Route 132
Hyannis, MA (¼ mile east of Exit 6 off Route 6)

Enjoy a continental breakfast as four authors discuss their recent works. Author presentations begin at 9:30am with time set aside for questions and book signings.

The cost of the event is $12. Reservations are requested. You may pay at the door.

Featuring:

Anne Broyles
Allie Dailey
Pat DePaolo
David Surette

For information and reservations please call the Cape Cod Writers’ Center 508-420-0200
email writers@capecodwriterscenter.org or go to
www.capecodwriterscenter.org

Cape Cod Writers’ Center
P.O. Box 408
919 Main Street, Osterville, MA 02655


5/15-18 New England Young Writers' Conference - Bread Loaf

5/30/08 Private Reading - Randolph, MA

6/20/08 Summer Solstice Reading - Walden Pond, MA

8/6/08 Boston Poetry Slam - Cambridge, MA

8/10-16 Cape Cod Writers' Conference - Hyannis, MA

8/21/08 Writer's Night - Effingham, N.H.

9/9/08 Tapestry of Voices at Borders - Boston, MA

9/20/08 Wake-up and Smell the Poetry - Hopkinton, MA

10/1/08 Chapter and Verse - Jamiaca Plain, MA

11/5/08 The Poetry Hoot - Portsmouth, NH

11/11/08 Newton Free Library - Newton, MA

1/18/09 Poetry in the Chapel - Jamaica Plain, MA

Please email info@davidsurette.com for details of readings or to book David for a reading.

 

David co-hosts POETRIBE in East Bridgewater, Mass. Check out the website for the schedule www.Poetribe.org.
 

Literary Journals and Anthologies

"In the Backyard,"The Rosary," and "You Have to Picture This."
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 and many others. Each poet prefaces their poems with a bio about their experiences as a Franco-American and it makes for great reading.
>

"The Tryout" and "Practice"
Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses. (Yarroway Mountain Press)- 2008
>

"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

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 photo from the Falmouth Bulletin

 

>click here to read review from the Barnstable Patriot

 

>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

 

>click here to hear an interview on WMFO

 

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


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