Synopses & Reviews
Wait Til You Have Real Problems, the fiercely imaginative debut collection from Scott Beal, tackles gender and childhood, passion and loss, in a series of thematically linked poems that will leave readers breathless. Beal finds inspiration in everything from fairytale to fatherhood, from a girl with barbed-wire hair to the origin of chicken noodle soupbut always, ultimately, from the core of the human.
Review
Ablaze with insights and riveting language, Beal's 'Fury Tales' are revelatory: his surprising linguistic and narrative moves elicit the unbidden traumas and dazzling weirdness of lived experience.Cool without being cold, wise but never smug, and utterly alive on the page, Scott Beal reminds me of the vast possibilities of literatureand existence." Alice Fulton, author of The Nightingales of Troy
Beal doesnt just write poems. What he does is create a richly colored world through poetry, one in which a toy sword wants to be a real one, a poem thats had too much beer gives the reader a second-hand buzz, women give birth to cork babies (they float better than the real ones), and snails share a love that makes the Romeo and Juliet story look like a trip to the mall. Who wouldnt want to live in such a world?" David Kirby, author of A Wilderness of Monkeys
This book is a treasure trove where nothing is beside the point--not the weird or the luscious, not the strange or familiar, not the comic or the tender. All is intricately cross-hatched and surprising in language. Marianne Boruch, author of The Book of Hours, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Review
"Scott Beal's poems are both fiercely imaginative and "as real as the reign / of your inner confetti machine." Whether they dream of a toy sword made of foam or a girl with barbed wire hair, their inventions speak to the deepest human fears and vulnerabilities, the largest catastrophes and tragedies, with freshness and a wild urgency. Ablaze with insights and riveting language, Beal's "Fury Tales" are revelatory: his surprising linguistic and narrative moves elicit the unbidden traumas and dazzling weirdness of lived experience. He writes of abused children, fatherhood, the terminally ill in lines that shiver with empathy. Tender yet toughminded, heartfelt yet free of sentimentality, his poems also are gorgeously wrought: rich with music and an architectural sinew that thrills. Cool without being cold, wise but never smug, and utterly alive on the page, Scott Beal reminds me of the vast possibilities of literature--and existence. I stand in awe before such profoundly ingenious testimony to the cruelty and wonder of what-is." --Alice Fulton, author of
The Nightingales of Troy"Some poems make it their business to hate the world. Scott Beal's do not though they can rage and grieve. In fact, these poems are the world, this book a treasure trove where nothing is beside the point--not the weird or the luscious, not the strange or familiar, not the comic or the tender. All is intricately cross-hatched and surprising in language, in the way a mind moves. This poet takes us "into the dream and the bite
." And true, maybe "the brain is a fizzy instrument/in night's open lab" but that belies the scary grounding precision involved. Look away, then back. And welcome this work." --Marianne Boruch, author of The Book of Hours, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
"Scott Beal doesnt just write poems. What he does is create a richly-colored world through poetry, one in which a toy sword wants to be a real one, a poem thats had too much beer gives the reader a second-hand buzz, women give birth to cork babies (they float better than the real ones), and snails share a love that makes the Romeo and Juliet story look like a trip to the mall. Who wouldnt want to live in such a world? I wish I couldoh, wait, I can! These poems open that door for me every time." --David Kirby, author of A Wilderness of Monkeys
Synopsis
A debut collection of poetry that examines, through the prism of everyday objects, what it means to be alive
Synopsis
Wait 'Til You Have Real Problems, the emotionally charged debut poetry collection from Scott Beal, tackles love and loss in a series of thematically linked pieces that will leave readers breathless. Beal finds inspiration in everything from myth to fairytale, from old photographs to the origin of chicken noodle soupbut always, ultimately, from the core of something unmistakably human.
About the Author
Scott Beals poems have appeared in Poemeleon, The Collagist, and the museum of Americana. Hewas awarded a Pushcart Prize in 2013 and currently teaches at the University of Michigan. Beal serves as a writer-in-the-schools for Dzanc Books in Ann Arbor. He also teaches in the Sweetland Center for Writing at the University of Michigan, from which he earned his MFA in 1996. He co-authored Jangle the Threads with Rachel McKibbens and Aracelis Girmay (Red Beard Books, 2010) and Underneath: The Archaeological Approach to Creative Writing with Jeff Kass (Red Beard Books, 2011). He currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.