Through an arrangement with Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin, Fessler Professor Karl Elder’s collection of poetry, The Minimalist’s How-to Handbook, which is being distributed this month, is immediately available to members of the Lakeland College community at a 40% discount off the cover price of $10. Please contact Professor Elder by email [elderk@lakeland.edu]or leave him a voice message [x1276] should you wish to obtain a copy or multiple copies that he, of course, will happily sign and/or inscribe upon request.
The following is a description of The Minimalist’s How-to Handbook appearing in the 2005 Parallel Press catalog of forthcoming books:
Remember the blind men who went to see the elephant? Each “saw,” by touch, different portions of anatomy and drew wildly divergent conclusions on the nature of the beast. So Karl Elder would unsettle our perceptions with wild interpretations of familiar forms. Might the numeral “3,” for example, suggest by shape “the unlocked handcuff / Houdini still sports”? And, does the colon of common punctuation gaze at us with “eyes of a dead man / lying on his side”? These mind-stretching works exhibit extraordinary imagination and urge us to deep our eyes and minds open.