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Acuity -- both
verbal and visual -- characterizes this new collection of Dan Stryk's
writing. What I so admire in Dimming Radiance is the life lived
-- and then lived again through the medium of language. William
Stafford's lines from "Bi-Focal" apply here: "So the
world happens twice -- / once what we see it as; / second it legends
itself / deep, the way it is." Stryk is always attentive to the
nuances of day-to-day experience, whether taking walks with his wife,
observing myriad aspects of the natural world, or teaching a young
friend how to fold a paper airplane ("'The last thing then’
-- I'm telling Sam -- 'you press the nose real sharp. Don't fly 'em
blunt.'"). This Zen of living fully in the moment and sensing
kinship with all things, large or small, permeates this collection
because it is truly Stryk's unassuming and humble way of living. These
writings grow naturally out of a life lived keenly with respect for all. — Jeff Daniel Marion This collection of Dan Stryk's evocative poetry is more brimming than dimming radiance. Reflective, it blows away the chaff of life, seeking always the essential, heft and substance. In its search the poetry turns toward purity -- rivers, snow, the courtship of damselflies, a perfect robin's egg -- passing all through "the narrows / of my flutelike skull." In Stryk's world, even the most insignificant becomes ethereal, as in the tentworm left "to munch on in rapt fervor over pondglow and bronze lilyheads." The book reads like a holy text, simple yet transcendental, demanding yet merciful, common yet sublime. — Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
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