Paradise Loft, poems by Laurence Carr (76 pages), a publishing collaboration of CAPS Press and Lightwood Press. $16./ Author’s Price $10. plus $4. postage if mailed. Contact author Laurence Carr for information and discount price. contact: larrycarr521@gmail.com
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This engaging collection of poems explores time. Written in eleven sections, Paradise Loft begins with an entry from the timeless “God’s Diary”, followed by morning writing; a sequence of time-travels; the afterlives of cats; observations of the feminine; prose poems of memories; evening writing; and closing with bilingual timeless dreamscapes.
The cover image is by artist Leticia Ortega who also created the Spanish translations for the final seven poems. The book design is by Elizabeth Cline.
Praise for Paradise Loft:
In stirring and evocative visions, in a variety of poetic forms (experimental, lyric, narrative), Laurence Carr explores journeys of memory, losses in life that haunt, and the transitory nature of existence. He meditates on the mysterious ways that time and timelessness intersect and shape our perspectives on experience. – Jan Zlotnik Schmidt, Author of Foraging for Light
The inhabitants moving furniture around Paradise Loft have discovered a calm, gradual insight they’d like to share with you: Whatever gives one meaning gives all life. Shakes a hundred truths from doubt. Makes us all starstuff . . .— Mike Jurkovic, author of American Mental
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a short history of the universe
the stars will stay on all night long
when someone down below
cries out to them
they will stay on all night long
if even one of us fears sleeping
in the dark
the stars will not shut off at night
when even one of us
feels lost
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7 a.m.
we set time back
and then ahead
time runs fast
or slow and then runs out
we travel time through life
and whether we know it or not
we have all the time in the world
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From the Preface:
Paradise Loft is a collection that explores time. Countless writers have shown how time affects the characters within their narratives: Proust, perhaps at the centerpiece, with In Search of Lost Time, Virginia Woolf with The Waves and Orlando, and the overlooked but intriguing Lord Dunsany fantasy-romance, The King of Elfland’s Daughter. In Paradise Loft, poems are arranged into nine sections beginning with a prologue: “God’s Diary/Day 5”, a timeless timeframe, followed by “Wording/Morning.”, thoughts on morning writing; “Journeyman I”, a sequence of time-travels; “Feline Dreams” on the afterlives of cats, ending with the mid-20th century romance, “The Ballad of Henrietta Pussycat and Her Lover Thief Coyote.” Next, “Even She” are studies, much like an artist might keep in a sketchbook. The prose poems in “time past” bring up collected memories that have lingered long enough to record. “Journeyman II” continues the time-travels, and “Wording/Evening” shows the end of day grasping at end of day thoughts. The book closes with “in time”: seven dreamscapes in English and Spanish conjure themselves between two and seven A.M. and bring on a new beginning.
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Award-winning author Laurence Carr lives in New York’s Hudson Valley and writes fiction, CNF, poetry and plays. Books include: Strides: reflections on 6 acres with artist Edward M. O’Hara; Pancake Hollow Primer, (Winner of Next Generation Indie Book Award for first novel) and two poetry collections, Threnodies: poems in remembrance and The Wytheport Tales are published by Codhill Press. (www.codhill.com). He taught creative and dramatic writing at SUNY New Paltz for over twenty years. Laurence’s writing has been seen in numerous print and online sources, and he is the publisher of the online literary and arts magazine, Lightwood, at Lightwoodpress.com.
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