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SAS Books in Print
In the House of
the Sun
Poems celebrating Hawaii
A 2005 Release
Hawai‘i continues to conjure
images in the extreme, from the paradisally spectacular to the commercial
and crass. Based on the author’s visits there in the early 1990s, these
poems tap into the islands’ dazzling, often contradictory tapestry of
sights, sounds and savours: from the past simmering beneath its volatile
soil, to the urbanization and greed that threaten to eradicate its
Tahitian cultural roots. There is the tragic paradox of Kaho‘olawe
(“the Forbidden Isle”), and the devastation of 1992’s Hurricane
Iniki. Pele and the gods of creation are also explored, including a trek
through Haleakala Crater, which inspired the title of this book. A brief
glossary of Hawaiian terminology is included.
New Mexico's
license plates claim that their State is the Land of Enchantment, but In the House of the Sun Hawai'i becomes its own form of
enchantment. In the few days that I've had to read it these picture-perfect
images are etching their way into my memory just as sharply as acid
designs delineate a copper plate. It is like discovering thoughts you didn't
know you had and recognizing that a true seer has provided for you an
encompassing insight into faraway places. To have the luxury to feel
the distant sands, to drift among the adolescent corals with pock-marked
complexions and to converse with ancient Hawaiian spirits without
leaving the North American continent is mind travel at its best! Emerson
once said that 'A vivid thought brings the power to paint it; and in
proportion to the depth of its source is the force of its
projection.' And so it is with this writing: the power of painting is
entwined in the grasp of the poetry resulting in the music of
the mind."
Susan Davey,
Virginia, March 2005
ISBN
0-921852-33-9 5" x 8"
100 pages $12.00
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Saint Francis of Esplanade
A Play in Two Acts
A 2001 Release
Cover art by Geof Isherwood
Sixty-two
year-old Francis Amable is a born-again Catholic. His
thirty-three year old neighbour Lazarus Fricker is a nightclub tripper. Francis
considers it his god-given duty to reform all sinners. Lazarus, considers it his sacred right to convert
everyone
to his own brutally-honest perspective. These two opposites conduct
their daily verbal battles within the confines of an Esplanade Street rooming
house. Between boisterous, warm-hearted Marguerite Feuille, former janitor's ghost, and homophobic neighbour George Parko, the
situation reels from one extreme to the next.
I finally had a chance
to read SAINT FRANCIS OF ESPLANADE and was very impressed
with its literary quality and dramatic intensity. It reads well and kept
my interest; the stagecraft is very effective — even things like George's
threatened violence and the late-arriving ticket to Australia
are the kinds of complications that keep the audience/reader
on his or her toes; the characters are fully realized, and one can sympathize
with and enter into their lives. The play is first rate.
Its theme is intelligent and compelling.
Peter Burnham, The
Long Story
The
titular hero of poet Sonja Skarstedt’s first play is 62-year-old Francis
Amable, a born-again Catholic who lives in a Montreal rooming house. Neighbour
Lazarus Fricker, 33, is Francis’ moral opposite. Whereas Francis sees it as
his role to reform all sinners, Lazarus considers it his duty to introduce
Francis to the attractions of venality. Other character include homophobic
George Parko, his girlfriend Kleo, and Marguerite Feuille, a wise, outspoken,
and curiously childlike everywoman figure who acts as a catalyst for much of the
ensuing moral argument. Offsetting the play’s sometimes stilted dialogue are
speeches that have a ring of true poetry about them.
David E. Kemp,
Canadian Book Review Annual 2001
ISBN
0-921852-30-4
90pp 5½”
x 8½”
$12.00
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Beautiful Chaos
New
Poems
A 2000 Release
cover art by Geof Isherwood
Sonja Skarstedt’s book is often beautiful but never chaotic. In the title poem, which presents an Apollonian understanding of a Dionysian concert, she encompasses a great deal of the chaos of contemporary life with lucidity.
Her feeling for the urban landscapes of Montreal is strong, but she can also evoke the
milieu of the American Southwest, as in her suite called “Arizona Circumferences.” Skarstedt has a capacious sensibility and a sharp,
image-laden style to express what she imagines and experiences."
Olga Costopoulos-Almon
Canadian Book Review Annual 2001
"Skarstedt expresses
gratitude to the late Louis Dudek for counsel and inspiration and, like Dudek,
she can range through mythology (Aztec), art (Van Gogh and Kahlo), and literary
figures (Lorca, Yevtushenko). Her feeling for the urban landscapes of Montreal
is strong, but she can also evoke the milieu of the American Southwest, as in
her suite called “Arizona Circumferences.”
Peter
Burnham, The Long Story
"I am much impressed by
the poems, the verve and energy of what you have to say. One poem after another,
& always distinctly yours."
George Johnston
"Her
sense of order betrays, even through the veil of chaos. Skarstedt's
poems are to be read slow, and long, like
a flavour or seasoning. Her poems read like
individual narratives, with titles like 'Emergency
Room, 2:20a.m.or
'Thursday Evening Trumpet Player.' She
reads most interesting when she steps outside
the bounds of her own experience, such
as in 'Van Gogh on Rue Goyer,' or 'Lovesong for Two Dying Meteors,' ...
and also in how she uses Artie Gold lines interspersed
with her own, as in 'A
Photograph of Artie Gold.' "
rob
mclennan
Montreal Review of Books
“The
writing is amazingly tangible, all six senses on alert....
There’s such tightness of focus here, and such a passion for
capturing the moment in all its specificity. So many journeys as
well, and so much celebration of city life with all its traffic
jams and shopping malls, things most poets seem to totally
ignore.... The Arizona poems were especially interesting, very
evocative, yet restrained, the inner eye holding itself back...”
Barry
Dempster
ISBN 0-921852-27-4
108 pages 6"x9"
$12.00
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A Demolition Symphony
New Poems
A 1995 Release
cover art by the author
Upheaval as catalyst. War. Inclinations of chaos. The tensions and inebriating passions of Montreal provide a fertile ecosphere. Satire, humour and word fugues evoked by the not-so-inevitable fallout of life on the brink of the twenty-first century. Dialogues. Whimsical auras and human portraits emanate from this era's version of the village square, the subterranean shopping mall. Music from an urban perspective.
"It is impossible to sit down with the book and not find yourself transfixed…I feel the city, not just Montreal, but any enthralling major city, where the present moment is an epiphany on its way to becoming a ruin.The best word to describe the effect of it would be ‘majestic,’an almost classical kind of passion and import."
Poetry Canada
"Skarstedt is a witness, and what people and places she sees are scrupulously reported. This is a good book by a poet whose work gets steadily more interesting."
Bert Almon, Canadian Book Review Annual
ISBN 0-921852-10-X
108 pages 5½”
x 8½”
$12.00
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Mythographies
Skarstedt's first poetry collection
A 1990 Release
Cover design by Geof Isherwood
"...sheer love of language is a wonderful augury — the first and ultimate possession of the poet — and an accomplishment. Love of words shines all through the book—"
Ralph Gustafson
“I have read it through, & most of it two or three times, and feel as though I am being hurried along, as Alice is by the Red Queen —
I think it is the Red Queen, without moving from the same spot, a breathtaking performance..."
George Johnston
"It's refreshing to encounter a first book of poems that focuses on the busy outside world rather than the poet's personal life."
Stephen Henighan
The Montreal Gazette, January 1991
ISBN 0921852-002
64 pages
6"x9"
$10.00
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