Published by Hidkey Press
Perfect Bound, 103 pages
5½ by 8½ inches, 2003
ISBN# 0-9740623-0-8
$7.00
Praise for Harvey Overton’s Work
Sestinas, villanelles, and sonnets still have a place in the post-modernist landscape of contemporary poetry. Harvey Overton’s How We Measure Fourteen and Other Poems is a somber book, composed mostly of sonnets, that explores the complexities of old age, sickness and death. In “Addiction” he confronts cancer with an edgy acknowledgement of the power of pain. Other poems counterpoint the cancer sequence, such as his fine praise poem for Monk, “Night Song for Thelonious”:
It’s always night or we wouldn’t need light
when notes darken and the Monk runs deep
as we wake to dream ’round midnight
shaded in chiaroscuro blue…
Overton also runs deep.
Frank Verela – Poet and Editor
About The Author
Harvey Overton retired from the Humanities Department of Western Michigan University in 1984. He now lives in Chicago where he has been active in The Guild Complex and has published three chapbooks of poetry: Hanging Out in Space, Notes of a Stargazer, and How We Measure Fourteen and Other Poems.
Contents
BEING HERE
Negative Space
An Ear Dissected
Remains of Dante Reported Missing
Late Night Thoughts on Reading Lewis Thomas
How It Could Happen
The Uncertainty Principle
Expectations
Consumers
A Word or Two on Love
The Crying Game
Imperfect Love
Acceptance
His Corner
The Graffiti Artist
The Jungles of Henry James
I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say
Dreaming by Ear
The Man Said
Night Song for Thelonious
Rush Hours
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Door
Ma Jolie
That Italian Woman
Paris Street, Rainy Day
Loss of Confidence
After the Fall
Son of the Poet
Weldon Kees to J.D. Salinger
Remembering
The Armory Wrestling Match
Being Here
THE SLANT SONNETS
Personals
Vamps
Supermarket Tabloids
Green People
Urban Renewal
Bill of Particulars
DRAPING THE DOORWAYS
Bells for Emily
Lament for a Lost Daughter
Bitter Poem
A Death in the Family
The County Medical Care Facility
Fine and Private Places
Alzheimer’s: On the Edge
Ironies
Coda
According to Your Last Will and Testament
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Retrieval
THE CANCER CIRCLE
Digital
Ultrasound Biopsy
Bone Scam
Consultation
The Decision
Impotence
Incontinence
Addiction
I Lecture My Cancer
I Introduce My Cancer to the Family
At Breakfast with My Cancer
ALBUM IN BLACK AND WHITE: THE DEPRESSION YEARS
Pink Slip
Funks’s Berry Farm
My Grandmother’s Back Door
Family Circle
Spring Funeral
MEMOIR
Memoir
BALANCING ACCOUNTS
The Morning of Panic on Turning Eighty
A Toast to Frost at Midnight
Confession
Dedication
Ballad for Two Thousand One
Choosing