spuytenduyvil

In his sixth full-length publication, poet Andrew K. Peterson folds cyclical and repeating composition practices in this adventurous tête-bêche double book. Scorpio Journal is composed during the titular zodiac sign’s governing dates, inspired by the Scorpio personality’s fascination with autumnal moodiness, directness, and joy. Secret Equinox pushes back against “The Springtime Industrial Complex” while anticipating and accepting change between Spring/Summer solstices. Peterson’s time-based journals attend to the daily ephemeral while reflecting a multi-versed sense lurking in deep rhythms of pattern-thought.

 

 

Scorpio Journal

 

Scorpio Journal is Andrew K. Peterson’s magickal, lyrical journey through the glorious rituals of the fall. These poems sweep the reader into the swirling sights and sounds of the beauty of the world as it journeys into winter. Peterson chronicles each day as he dreams them in waking hours and with a music and rhythm all his own – a cadence that mimics the slow march of fall into winter. What is the sound of one leaf falling? Who are the poetic lights of our secret history he honors and alludes to, as days shorten and darkness of December approaches? His experiences of the season are immediate; spontaneously written, yet refined and articulate in their pure celebration of the joys and the mysteries of Scorpio time. Andrew’s autumnal vision recalls the lyrics to a country song that stick in my mind, “Corn’s turned brown, leaves fall to the ground, it’s a sound that sticks like glue.” These poems stick in your mind as they fall to the ground.

     Jim Dunn

 

 

 

A Letter from Jared Hayes re:

Secret Equinox

 

andy     how do you know a poem

  sometimes conceptual   sometimes confessional

           many times both       yr voice a clear reminder

so i always imagine you reading these to me

   eyes over glasses or thru

          but head tilted

  lips tilted to

at the corners

yr mind is dancing with mine

      brilliant the vision and diverse the processes

    loud and soft

 maps of the mind and sounds of lists or lists with sounds

together in happiness some o’hara some teddy ballgame (berrigan)

        some kyger on high with a tumbling laughing

whalen

you know how to converse and so level with love

  love is the level at which you do yr best leveling

 

new constructions of discarded words found and given shine

 the movements are met and micro too

   time being placed in narrative in one

  the next holding time over and over again with a comma

      how together we are in yr poems

        i always come up short trying to tell you about yr books

           i copy/photo so many and try and think of an arc to

repeat to you to reveal the secrets yr pomes share with me

  only to be here then outside of the book

      when really it is most pleasant to be in the book!

           the diversity of form

is always so pleasing because of yr loving kindness to language

to the planet of plants and xxxxxxxxx soulx…

 to have the pleasure of the micro poem to poem

one time smiling with my tongue           or feeling with my eyes

       the play and seriousnesses throughout      i am yr reader

 

i feel so many lineages and nods and appreciations in these - - -

          yet they are you… all you…

       elegant wit and grace

           and my favorite poem in this one is

  morning codex

             but you probably clve guessed that

 

Past Praise for Andrew K. Peterson

 

Andy Peterson’s poetry combines visual art, both his own and some found elsewhere in the universe, with words redolent of mystery, thrillers, clues and riddles, and does so in a far more intelligent and sustaining way than present popular literature — while not adopting any sense of “superiority” to same.

     Anselm Hollo

 

Intra-species, foaming, future-soaked, and with a “metallic corsage” delicately sewn to the wrist, the figures in Peterson’s poems come to get you. And they do. They get you and take you somewhere until: “we are all here together in our new place.”

     Bhanu Kapil

 

Peterson has given us poems for the chaos and swirl of life, intertwined with the delicious and glittering beauty of the world. His expert wordplay makes you dizzy with wonder, while, calling out disturbances and losses, death, rebellion, collapse, heartbreak, and disappearances of all kinds.

     lark fox

 

I feel so grateful… exhilarated by what poetry can do, by what Andy Peterson does as a poet. I want to say it is like assemblage, but it’s so much deeper than that: a kind of cinema of relation.

     Amina Cain