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Dog Barking at Fireflies. (Original poetry);
Abstract
Dog Barking at Fireflies is a heterogenous collection of 58 poems reflecting different moods, styles, and degrees of seriousness. The collection is divided into five sections. The poems in "The House of Laryngitis" have to do with the way we come to know the world and the difficulties of such knowledge. "The Flea Market" section is a hodgepodge; the title suggests the notion of a big disordered place where one might find anything and where oddities keep claiming our attention. The poems in "Owner-Constructed" all involve in some way the relationship between men and women. "The Old Air" section is concerned mainly with mortality and the image of the past as "old air" in a stagnant, closed-in house which one has abandoned and now feels remorse for. The poems in "Dog Barking at Fireflies" touch simultaneously on the world's mystery and its mortality. The title is intended as a metaphor for the poetic act, one which can encompass the diversity and disunity of the collection. The sources of the poems were various. The largest number arose out of my own daily living, listening, or seeing. A few try consciously to explore a moment from my past. Others came from teaching, television, and tabloids; still others were responses to class exercises and assignments. The poems are mostly free verse, though they frequently employ irregular rhyme and the various forms of near rhyme and pay much attention to sound and rhythm.
Subject Area
American literature
Recommended Citation
King, Kenneth Elwood, "Dog Barking at Fireflies. (Original poetry);" (1990). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9118462.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9118462